Make-up the Difference
by CZena
Summary: Accused of crimes they didn't commit by dark forces they don't understand, the Gray Death Legion has come across an ancient Star League Castle Brian. But inside they will find more than just rest and resupply. They will discover a remnant of the Star League long-dormant as war ravaged the Inner Sphere. And what they discover will change the Inner Sphere-the universe-forever.
1. Chapter 1 - Wake up!

**Star League Castle Brian  
Inside Nagayan Mountain, Helm  
17 June 3028**

Grayson Death Carlyle ran his fingers across the lettering engraved in the ferrocrete of the solitary building inside the underground chamber and felt a profound shock to see those words in this place. He, and what remained of his 'Gray Death Legion', had been expecting a weapons cache. A Star League Castle Brian installed during the final death throes of the League two centuries before. Instead, they had found this empty chasm and the building that read only: STAR LEAGUE FIELD LIBRARY FACILITY, HELM, DE890-2699.

"What does it mean, Gray?" Lori asked, eyeing the inscription herself.

"I think it means we're going to have some trouble explaining things to Duke Ricol. This isn't what any of us had in mind when we thought of a Star League treasure." Grayson said. He wasn't sure how the Duke would react to such a blasé 'treasure', but he couldn't help but feel a slight sense of guilt at not living up to his side of the bargain they'd struck. It would feel cheap of him to take advantage of the Duke's offer of evacuation without providing him with anything.

Grayson sent a man to fetch the datastick that had allowed him to open the massive facility's outer doors. There were innumerable legends of Star League facilities that had been booby-trapped by their creators, and he had no desire to test and see if this was one of them. Besides, with how empty the chamber had looked, he didn't want to risk damaging anything that might still be left that was of value.

The door into the building opened smoothly after he slid the datastick into the appropriate port, and Grayson cautiously entered. Centuries-old lights recessed into the ceiling snapped to life as if they had been installed the previous day. Besides a utilitarian desk on the far-end, the room was completely bare. Whitewashed walls with the occasional inlaid speck that had to be tri-vid projectors and other such electronics gave the entire room a clinical and cold feeling that Gray did his best to ignore. The only interruption in the white screen made by the walls were a pair of doors on opposite sides of the room to his left and right.

Grayson was struck by the sudden impulse to back away, as if he was intruding somewhere he should not be. As if at any moment a sentry in a Star League uniform might open one of the doors and order him to halt for inspection. Everything inside looked as if it had been left the previous day and the builders had expected to return. There wasn't even a single speck of dust to be found in the room!

Lori cut away from him and opened the door that stood on the right. After scanning it for a moment, she closed it back up and began across the room towards the remaining door. Grayson tried not to sigh at the needler-pistol she held in her hand. She was just a little too paranoid, sometimes.

As Grayson continued further into the room, the entire wall on the far side came to life in a blaze of color and light. Unlike with the computers he'd always dealt with, there was no extended delay or the high-pitched clicking and whining as electronics went to work. Even centuries-old and without maintenance, Star League technology worked so much better than that he was used to!

Words flashed across the wall in a dozen different languages: "If Virtue & Knowledge are diffused among the People, they will never be enslav'd. This will be their great Security." –Samuel Adams

When Grayson touched a key on the panel at the base of the quote, the words vanished. In their place, a rather blasé-looking list appeared. Ranging from a 'General Reference' listing at the beginning to 'Technology and Applied Sciences' at the end, there had to be at least twenty different categories! His heart pounding in his chest, Grayson used the panel in front of him to select the final category, daring not to hope that the Library was actually intact.

There was a rumbling roar of machinery all around him, and the walls filled themselves with images of power-generating stations, 'Mechs, and Jumpships. The list of categories was replaced by an entirely different one, this time dealing with a more narrowly-defined set of technologies and scientific topics. As he highlighted each one he was bombarded by links within them to images, tri-vids, scientific papers that discussed the technology talked about.

The Library—or at least one of the most valuable portions of it—was completely intact! Even the entire student body of the New Avalon Institute of Science would be hard-pressed to study all of this!

"Lori. I think it's all here! It's a complete Memory Core! And it works!" Grayson said, feeling a stupid grin spread itself across his face as he began to wildly click buttons on the Star League computer.

If Duke Ricol could see past the fact that this was not the weapons and armor he'd been expecting, then Grayson had no need to worry about cheating the man. In the almost three-hundred years of constant war since the fall of the Star League, vast amounts of the information and knowledge inside the tiny memory core had been lost. This was one step towards recovering all of that! If they could keep it away from those who wanted to destroy it or keep it to themselves…

"Grayson?" Lori asked in the cute whisper-hiss she used whenever trying to get his attention in public.

Grayson turned to find the woman standing in front of the other door inside the room. The needler was still held with the barrel towards the ceiling, but Lori looked to be on the verge of fainting. Which was impressive because Grayson didn't think fainting was something she'd even accept as a possibility.

Her mouth moved, but no words came. Instead, she waved him over with her free hand.

Shaking his head, Grayson stepped away from the Star League computer that held detailed knowledge of who-knew how many pieces of lostech. What could possibly be more stunning than that?

Grayson tilted his head so he could look over Lori's shoulder into the room, and found the answer to his question.

* * *

 _Sensors indicate that a credentialed and authorized entry to Helm DE890-2699 has taken place. Emergency beacon disengaged._

 _Date estimate inaccurate. Minor stasis-pod malfunction suspected._

 _Reoxygenation sequence initializing…_

 _Beagle Active Probe-derived force estimate: Not Available. Minor stasis-pod malfunction suspected._

 _Neural Network Primary Systems activating-BOOT ERROR-Unable to establish connection. Primary Systems…Offline._

 _Stasis fluid undergoing neutralization…_

 _Neural Network Secondary Systems activating-BOOT ERROR-Unable to establish connection. Secondary Systems…Offline._

 _Adipose tissue thaw and repair in-progress…_

 _Neural Network Tertiary Systems activating…53% online-ADDT'L POWER REQUIRED-_

 _Thermal stress remediation begun…_

 _Estimated time to revival completion: 23 seconds._

It had been waiting a long time to wake up the Duchess. Had it been capable, it might have felt relief or satisfaction at its impending release. Had it been capable of confusion, it might also have experienced that. After all, the BattleMechs it had detected were of quite nonstandard configuration and were Quite Late—if the stasis-pod's date estimate was correct.

 _Estimated time to process completion: 15…14…13…17…9…13…12…_

It kept the data on unidentified BattleMechs—and the estimated date—to itself for the moment. Information overload during stasis revival was a major concern. Besides, the House militias were always grafting strange combinations of weaponry onto their 'Mechs. More concerning was the late arrival of these reinforcements, but there undoubtedly existed a relativistic explanation for that as well. Items of concern, certainly, but not ones that justified a potential life-process failure for her.

 _Authorized entrant has booted Memory Core. Companion is approaching stasis rooms._

 _Estimated time to revival completion: 3…2…3…2…1_

 _Thermal stress remediation complete._

 _Adipose tissue thaw and repair complete._

 _Stasis fluid neutralization complete._

 _Reoxygenation complete._

 _Pod doors opening. Thermoregulation mechanisms set to default. Minimal dosage Alpha-MPEA applied._

Mariah snapped from an almost complete lack of awareness to a very unpleasant consciousness.

Her back was freezing. Her hair padded together in multiple places with thick, wet remnants of the stasis solution. Her veins themselves seemed to throb in pain. Every breath she took fought past a thick lump in her throat and sounded like a painful attack against her ears whenever she let it out.

Drugs were Bad.

Perhaps not physically. At least nor for her. But in terms of the sensations they produced? Of how much infuriating minutiae they made her notice? Drugs were most definitely Bad. She didn't like drugs.

Fighting down a groan, Mariah leaned upwards. The stasis-solution was still making its way through the permeable upper layer of the pod, and getting her back out of that puddle of fluid brought an end to a few of the drug-enhanced sensory assaults she was facing.

In desperation to end the painful, rhythmic thump-thump-thumping coming through the IV line on her right arm and spreading through her entire body, she pulled it free. Only afterwards did she realize that the sensation wasn't caused by the IV but by her heartbeat. She dropped the empty IV line to the side, and tried to ignore the pain.

It was odd. She would have needed to be out for decades to experience the kind of stasis-induced atherosclerosis this had all the symptoms of. The stasis-pod must have been faulty and not done a perfect job of preserving her capillaries. Considering the failures it had apparently encountered tracking the passage of time or interfacing with the BAPs that lined the cache's outer walls, that wouldn't be too surprising. At least the emergency beacon clearly worked as intended, as evidenced by the tall blonde woman at the door.

Ignoring the woman for the moment, Mariah began to methodically tear away the electrostimulus patches that dotted her body. They hadn't been necessary, but appearances were always important. Which was also why she wasn't going to be the first one to speak. It put her at a disadvantage.

She probably couldn't speak past the lump in her throat anyways.

"Grayson!"

Mariah's head was viciously stabbed by the scream, and she leaned over slightly as a precaution. When she puked a moment later, sending silver and black gobs of stasis-fluid onto the ferrocrete floor, she was glad she had. Puking on herself might give off the wrong impression.

Being naked didn't exactly give off the right impression. But until she got a few more uninterrupted breaths into her lungs, that was something she couldn't do anything about. Stasis revival always took at least a minute or two to recover from. It would be odd if she didn't display the same issues.

Another face appeared at the door, this one a man's. Angular and a little harsh, he looked like he hadn't slept in a very long time and was rather annoyed with the woman who had called him over.

His face went hilariously blank when he spotted Mariah. She smirked slightly at that. He didn't know it yet, but his authority had just been superseded. The only question was who he was and what unit he belonged to. Supposedly the Fifty-first Dragoons were—

 _No identification-chip data available-individuals are not Hegemony or House citizens. Insignia not recognized. Periphery militiaman probable._

Mariah jerked at that information. Neither of the two even had a chip? That probably meant Taurian. How had jumped-up periphery _settlers_ gained authorized access to a Star League facility? Was Kerensky so desperate as to impress into service any trash that he crossed paths with? That certainly fit the style of the militaristic old codger, but she wouldn't have thought any Taurians would willingly serve under League command. Not after New Vandenberg.

Something was dreadfully wrong.

Taking a deep breath, Mariah rolled over the side of the stasis-pod and onto her feet. She wanted to sigh as she finally came free of the sticky rubberized fabric of the pod, but held it in. It wouldn't do to look relieved just yet. She still had to go through the 'weak' stages of revival.

Mariah let her legs buckle slightly, and quickly put one hand on top of the pod as if to steady herself. "You will take me to the nearest HPG."

Periphery barbarians or not, she wasn't going to look past the chance to finally get out of the Helm facility and get word out. She may have stopped Keeler's madness, but the man himself had gotten away thanks to his damned single-coded security-system. That seemed like a situation that needed to be corrected. Violently. Before he could escape to another world and subject it to his insanity.

Sliding open a drawer on the stasis-pod, Mariah grabbed the plastifilm bag within and withdrew the underwear and bra inside. She'd feel considerably less awkward in the conversation if she wasn't naked.

The two people at the door exchanged a look with each other. Her being clothed would probably make them more comfortable as well.

"There's a naked woman in here, Lori." The man said. His voice was choked and amazed, as if he'd never even seen a stasis-pod before. If that was the case they were from even deeper in the Periphery than Mariah had thought. Which only made things more confusing as to what they were doing here and how they'd arrived. Perhaps she'd just had the misfortune of meeting the dumbest pair in the unit?

Mariah ignored her rising annoyance by raising one leg to slide into the underwear she held. Letting the motion push her upper-body over, she acted as if she hadn't been prepared to lose the leg. She caught herself before she actually fell, though.

"Yes. There is. She came out of that tube." The woman—Lori—said.

She brought the underwear up and settled it around her waist, but stayed silent. This seemed like a conversation the pair was going to have to finish on their own. Though she wasn't quite sure what the point of it was. Time was a-wasting and they seemed intent on stating the obvious before any progress could be made.

"There's a naked woman in here, and she came out of that tube?" The man practically repeated, twisting his head back-and-forth between the subjects of his statement.

"Yes. She came. Out of. The tube."

They were clearly intent on _repeatedly_ stating the obvious. Trying to suppress a sigh, Mariah slammed the bra down over her breasts and offered a glare at the pair of imbeciles who were still standing in the doorway rather than doing anything _useful_. No wonder it had taken Kerensky's bully-boys so long to stop the Taurians if this was the kind of idiots he had in his service.

"There. I'm not naked anymore. Yes, I came out of the pod. That is generally how the things work. Now, would you be so kind as to get me your commanding officer? Tell him Major Mariah Hawkins desires his presence immediately." Mariah growled. Clearly she had to make them recognize her as some kind of authority to get the idiots in gear. Otherwise they'd probably stand there talking about what they saw all day, and none of them had time for that.

The man had the gall to _laugh_ of all things.

"We're going to have a _lot_ of trouble explaining things to Duke Ricol." He said.

 _No such Duke in records. No such planet in records. 'Ricol' as a surname yields results in excess of easy sorting._

Trying not to grind her teeth together, Mariah seized on the name as quickly as she could despite its unfamiliarity. She was desperate for any authority higher than the two in front of her and she could sort out the other oddities about it later. Someone might use a minor and relatively unknown title or rank in order to appear more inconspicuous. She'd been doing it for centuries. She was doing it now. Who was she to judge?

"You are going to have trouble explaining to him why you're taking so long to respond to simple orders as well." Mariah said before she could stop herself. She forced her tone down a notch, "So, just take me to this 'Duke Ricol' so I can get a ride off of Helm. I must report to General Kerensky."

More accurately she needed to convince the warlord not to be a complete and total _idiot_ as he already had been. But these two didn't need to know that.

The man snorted slightly before suddenly going serious and locking eyes with her. "I'm afraid that's not going to be possible, Major. Nobody's seen Kerensky in almost two-hundred and fifty years"

 _Date estimate was not in error. Currently June 17 of 3028._

Mariah's legs really did buckle this time, and she dropped back onto the stasis-pod as all the strength she thought she had abandoned her. Two-hundred and sixty years! She had been in stasis for two-hundred and sixty years?

Two-hundred and sixty.

Two hundred. Then another sixty.

Suddenly she could sympathize with the constant repetition of words her rescuers had been indulging in.

Two-hundred and sixty years. Gone. Without her even noticing. The irony almost made her want to laugh for a moment. A moment.

When the moment passed, she found herself leaning sideways against the stasis-pod violently trying to puke out of an empty stomach.

How many people were dead because she had been trapped here?

What had happened to the Others?

What had happened to humanity?


	2. Chapter 2 - Put on a little Make-up!

Mariah's hands curled into fists as she fought down the dry-heaves. Nails which had almost two centuries to grow with only minor limitation from the stasis-pod dug into her skin, making deep indentations in the synthetics. It hurt.

She focused on the sensation. Using it to fight down the illogical portion of her mind that insisted this couldn't be happening. It clearly was. Perhaps she even should have expected it when she'd been locked away.

Or perhaps there was a simpler explanation. She had only hoped that the stasis-pod's emergency beacon would be strong enough to get through the rock ceilings of the facility. If it hadn't been…Well, it explained her current predicament.

Whatever the cause, she had to deal with the result.

She was _late_. There was no way to change that. At least, not that she would be allowed to take advantage of. Trying to would be violating one of the taboos and most likely result in more harm anyways. She just had to accept it and work with it as best she could. Perhaps there was still time for some good to sprout from a final end of the Star League.

On the bright side, she could take some measure of comfort in the fact there were still humans. While it was a certainty that many more had died because she had been locked away, that some survived to carry on was enough. It had to be. She clung to the small glimmer of hope they represented as tightly as she could. It was all she—or they—had.

Billions were dead because of her inability to do her duty. She could only hope she wasn't Too Late for those that remained.

"Lori? Go get a medtech in here." She heard Grayson say.

 _All biological functions read as nominal. Some slight involuntary myomer contraction has been detected in right calf, but is due to a temporary stoppage in electrolytic fluid dispersion. Problem corrected._

A medtech couldn't be allowed, then. Even a Star League doctor with a classified clearance wouldn't have understood. Some Periphery barbarian who dabbled in medicine was certain not to. Worse than that, if they saw any unedited scans of her body they would start to ask questions. She had more important things to do than explain such minutiae. Not when it would be completely irrelevant in a short period of time anyways. Especially not when they might try to stop her.

Best to do things quickly then.

She focused for a moment, reaching out Beyond and feeling at the planet itself. Opening herself to everything and everyone on it so she could see what they were like. It was an odd sensation. Like approaching a stranger to ask them to dance. Not that she knew what that was like, but she'd heard stories…

Mariah grinned slightly at the memory, but quickly refocused herself. In this case, the prospective dance-partner was quite insistent it had no interest in taking a whirl around the floor. It wasn't even listening to the music.

Mariah pulled herself back. It was still not yet Helm's time. She'd have to find a different location.

With how the Great Houses had been preparing to burn each other to the ground when she'd been forced into stasis, doing so shouldn't be terribly difficult. She just had to get off the planet and find a more suitable one. One whose time _was_ up.

Much as it frightened her, Lori and Gray looked like the best bet for doing that. The only thing that mattered now was accomplishing her duty, no matter how late it might be. They could help. They would help. Whether they wanted to or not.

 _An edited report of health status has been transmitted to stasis pod. Original diagnostic overridden, downloaded to internal memory, and is available for reference if required under heading 'Health Status – June 3028'._

Mariah pushed herself off the edge of the stasis-pod so she was more properly sitting atop it and forced her fists to relax. "A medtech will not be necessary. I am in perfect health. The pod will tell you that much. I am not in any physical pain."

"It's not exactly _physical_ pain I was worried about. Might not be all-there after so long in a fancy tube." Gray muttered. She wondered if he'd even meant to say the words out loud.

The blonde man paused and raised an eyebrow towards Lori, this time apparently deciding on making his voice clearly loud enough to hear. "I suppose it's not like we exactly have any medtechs qualified for geriatric care though."

Mariah didn't laugh, but one corner of her lips ticked upwards in appreciation of the comment. It was actually pretty funny. Lori made a growling noise in the back of her throat. It sounded like a well-used response to the stupidity of someone very close.

They made a cute couple.

" _What_ were you _doing_ in here Major Hawkins?" She finally heard him repeat, for what must have been the third or fourth time judging by the strain in his voice. It was a reasonable question. But it could also prove useful to avoid it and see how they reacted.

"Obviously I was in stasis."

The man bobbed his head slightly and bit his lip, apparently accepting the answer as his due for poor phrasing. Lori grinned, but the smile only reached as far as her canines. It wasn't vicious or sadistic, but it was clearly not amused.

"I think what Colonel Carlyle meant to ask is why you were in stasis." She asked.

So it was 'Colonel Carlyle', was it? That could be enough for a datanet search to draw up something useful.

 _Planetary datanet unavailable. Local network operations only—ADDT'L POWER REQUIRED—_

D'oh. That was going to be hard to live without for the short while she'd need to.

"Ah. You see, I was in stasis because I was trapped in this facility." Mariah said. It was almost fun to playfully frustrate their attempts at friendly interrogation.

"And why were you tr—no—what were you doing here before you got trapped?" Lori pressed, apparently catching on to the game. Clever girl.

"Inspection of the facility. I was in charge of quality control." Mariah lied effortlessly. "In retrospect, considering the way he used it to keep me in here, the decision to grant the primary engineer lockout privileges was ill-advised."

"The primary engineer locked you in here? What for?" The questions came from Colonel Carlyle this time.

"Because he's a homicidal maniac." Mariah answered simply. The bluntness seemed to shock him. Or perhaps the words themselves did? She'd have thought Keeler's atrocities would have been well-documented.

"I don't like this, Gray. She's ghosting up my sensors worse than a Kell." Lori whispered, turning towards the man and speaking as if they were the only two people in the room. How infuriating! Granted, she was whispering so low another human probably couldn't have heard what was said from Mariah's position. But it was the principle of the thing.

"Well what are we supposed to do? Shoot her?" Grayson whispered back.

Lori almost nodded, but cut if off at the last minute. "We could kick her out of the place. She's not telling us something, I can feel it."

Mariah experienced a moment of reflection and decided she may have been a bit too frustrating towards the pair. Normally she wouldn't have given any reason for someone to think she wasn't telling the truth. She'd blame it on lack of practice for now. It had been two-hundred and sixty years since she'd last had to lie.

Two-hundred and sixty years.

Mariah dragged her focus away from that matter as quickly as she could, just in time for Colonel Carlyle to come to a decision.

"Well. Sorry to cut your welcome so short, but I've got a unit to save. We were expecting a Castle Brian full of weapons and 'Mechs, not _this_. Lori? Get her some clothes and…I don't know…Some food or something. You and her seem to be getting along just great, after all. I've got to try and figure out what the plan is now that we've walked into the world's most secure library." Gray continued, rubbing at his temples and beginning to turn-around in the doorway.

Mariah snorted and pushed herself off the stasis-pod. Her legs were still a little unsteady, but she locked them in place. The best way of getting people to do what you wanted was to help them at the same time.

"Would it assist you in your planning if I told you that this facility was _both_ a library and a Castle Brian Mister Gray?"

"It's Cap—" Lori shot an elbow into Gray's side, "Colonel Carlyle, actually. Grayson Carlyle. Of the Gray Death Legion. And I'd be very interested."

While she had some appreciation for the name, Mariah had never heard of the Gray Death Legion before…Of course she hadn't. It wasn't three-hundred years old. But if she accessed the planet's datanet she'd be able to get a brief—

 _Planetary datanet unavailable. Local network operations only—ADDT'L POWER REQUIRED—_

Mariah fought down a sigh. This lack of knowledge was going to be _very_ inconvenient.

Ignoring the complaint as best she could, she carefully opened another drawer on the pod. Biting her lip, she let the silence play out for a little while as if she were thinking as she rummaged through the bin. Her course of action was plain to see, but they would expect her to mentally debate the idea for at least a few moments.

Besides that concern, she did want to find a set of clothes. While she wasn't cold thanks to her internal heat-management systems, she would feel much more comfortable in something more than the bra and panties she'd managed to worm into.

She let out a slight murmur of appreciation as she found what she was looking for. The SLDF navy crest on the left shoulder of the jumpsuit inside the pod might make everyone around her uncomfortable this far into the future—present? But that was an advantage more than anything. The more they focused on one oddity, the less they'd notice any others.

"Alright. Consider this, Colonel. Agree to get me off the planet, and I'll open up the rest of the place for you." Mariah said as she slid her legs into the jumpsuit.

"The rest of the place?" Lori repeated back, eyes going narrow.

"The rest of the place." Mariah zipped her jumpsuit up to emphasize the statement and cocked one eyebrow at the other woman. She didn't much like repeating herself so much, but it seemed necessary with these two.

"Just how big is the rest of this place?" Lori asked next, a hint of bite entering her words. Apparently that was what she had meant to ask with her first question.

"A few dozen kilometers. It extends underneath the Nagayan Range all the way to the beginnings of the Vermillion Plains. That portion is the Castle Brian full of weapons and 'Mechs. This was what the planet's leaders got shown. Much better PR to build a hidden library than an impenetrable fortress."

"And you'd be okay with us marching through? Taking stuff with us? _Looting_?" Grayson asked.

"It's not my _home_. It's not what I was sent here to protect. It's the place I've been _trapped_. And a Ground Defense Force staging area, to boot. Me? Sailor was my job." Mariah pointed to the insignia on her jumpsuit, slightly amused at the way those words would be taken, "Take whatever you want. The SLDF won't be needing it any time soon. I've been stuck here too long already. I just want to leave this all behind."

What little amusement there had been died rather quickly at that. She'd made herself sad with the memory of her failure. She might have stopped Keeler from wiping out the planet, but she hadn't been able to stop him from destroying Freeport and every member of the Star League garrison who'd lived there. Hadn't been able to stop him from getting away and locking her away underneath this damned mountain. How much hadn't she been able to stop because instead of carrying out her duty she'd been trapped in here?

She was suddenly very oddly cold, and felt a shudder work its way up her back.

 _Myomer waste-heat disposal temporarily lowered to ninety-eight point eight percent._

Mariah frowned slightly at the sudden flush of heat. It didn't do the job as well as she wished it would. She wasn't physically cold anymore, but there was a very artificial feeling to the warmth. It didn't quite feel like it belonged.

"You have me at a bit of a disadvantage, Colonel. You know who I am and what I served, while I have no idea who you or this 'Gray Death Legion' you lead are." Mariah asked, trying to distract herself from the past with more immediate concerns. Who her rescuers actually served, even if she didn't have any context to the information, might be useful in due time.

Grayson and Lori exchanged a look that almost told her more than any words could. What did they have to be nervous about?

"We actually work for the Free Worlds League—" Lori began, only to be interrupted by Grayson.

" _Worked_ for the Free Worlds League." He hesitated, "They're currently trying to kill us, so I'd say our contract is null-and-void at this point."

Mariah tilted her head slightly and had the strangest sensation of being out-of-place in familiar territory. The Free Worlds League still existing made sense. It was disappointing the rotten husk of a nation hadn't cleared the way for something better, but that was her failure. It was understandable. But the fact that Grayson's unit was contracted to the League? Military units didn't serve under _contracts_. Businesses did. That made no sense.

"They're trying to kill you for no reason at all, I am sure?" Mariah finally said. Her curiosity about the screwy military organization that would operate by contract wasn't really that important. Not as important as establishing who her rescuers were.

"For a pretty good one, unfortunately. They think we blew up a city of almost twenty million people."

Mariah froze, and her eyes drifted to the pistol Lori still held. She could easily cross the distance between them before it could be trained on her, but she was less certain of her chances of destroying both opponents before they could warn anyone else. There was always the pistol inside the stasis-pod, but reaching for it was liable to get her shot if she tried it right now.

" _Did_ you?" Mariah asked, doing her best to keep her voice even. She might have to rethink any plans of associating with the pair.

Lori tried to disguise the step-back she took as a simple effort to get more comfortable. Mariah wasn't fooled. The woman was trying to get into a better shooting-stance. Apparently she wasn't easily fooled either. Something to keep in mind. Clever girl.

"Do I look like a psychopathic maniac?" Grayson asked, throwing his arms out.

"Edwin Keeler was a five-foot three, balding man who wore glasses and had a speech impediment. I know he murdered at least six hundred-thousand people. Looks can be deceiving, and you've already admitted to being _businessmen_ who apparently fight under contract for money. You might be able to understand my hesitation." Mariah replied in the same flat voice.

There was a long pause in the conversation, and the temperature of the stasis-room seemed to plummet. Lori still hadn't actually pointed the pistol at her, but both her hands were on it now. Grayson seemed to be the only one who was relaxed.

Mariah pushed down her instinctive reaction to a city being destroyed and tried to think about things logically. If he had destroyed a city, he probably wouldn't have told her. That wasn't exactly something advertised to what you thought was a former military officer.

Besides, she didn't sense the aftereffects of such mass destruction around him. She would be able to tell if he was responsible for that many deaths. He wasn't. She knew that as a solid fact now that she could focus on the matter. But she would have to make an appearance of distrust.

Sometimes behaving properly in life was so much harder to puzzle out than giving things a proper death.

"If I was half that evil, wouldn't I have just shot you already?" Grayson protested.

Mariah shrugged and slowly reached into the stasis-pod with one hand. Lori's pistol was now pointed at her, though not entirely raised.

"Maybe. Maybe not. I was foolish enough to offer opening more of the facility to you before I knew anything about you. Greed is a very human emotion. It can sometimes take-over for good sense."

Mariah's hand seized upon the gun-belt inside the drawer and she jerked the entire harness out in a single motion.

 _Pistol remains at full charge and is currently set to fire a medium-level anti-armor beam point-oh-oh-four seconds prior to discharging its solid projectile._

Lori flinched and began to bring her pistol up. But Grayson's arm shot out in front of her before she could complete the motion. To his credit, he only raised an eyebrow.

"Is this the part where you try to shoot us because you've gone nutty after two-and-a-half centuries of bad dreams?"

"No." Mariah said after a heartbeat-long pause, and she began to secure the belt around her waist. "This is the part where we establish we aren't going to shoot each other. My entrance-key to the rest of the facility is in the right pouch of this belt, right behind my pistol. I'm going to get it."

Mariah tightened the belt to her waist and slowly reached for the pocket. Lori tensed, but only adjusted her grip on her pistol rather than raising it any further. Grayson, impressively, didn't even flinch as she reached towards her holster. He likely just assumed the weapon wouldn't function after so long. Or maybe he really was that calm under pressure.

Snapping open the latch on the small pouch, Mariah withdrew the datastick within and tossed it towards Grayson. The thing would have survived a tank rolling over it, so his potentially dropping it didn't present any danger. Three cheers for Star League engineering!

Lori slowly loosened her grip on the pistol as Mariah brought her hands back up and folded them across her chest. It was so nice when people were predictable and decent! Much better than the alternative. Besides, she couldn't kill either of the two. It wasn't yet their time. Trying to just disable someone was a lot more difficult and really risky. Humans were just too fragile.

"Well then. Now that that's settled…Shall we?" Mariah asked, waving one hand at the door.

Lori and Grayson shared another one of their Looks. They really did make a decent pair.

"After you, Major Hawkins." Lori said after the slightest hesitation. The pistol went into its holster, but she took a few careful steps deeper into the room so Mariah wouldn't have to approach her to exit. In a way, it almost felt like a compliment from the woman more than anything else.

Mariah nodded and the edge of her mouth ticked upwards. "I'm a prisoner, then? Maybe I shouldn't have gotten out of the pod."

"Prisoner? Not at all. Otherwise we'd disarm you. For now, consider yourself an…Uninvited—and unexpected—guest." Grayson said.

Mariah had trouble not laughing at that, "It seems like I always am, Colonel Grayson. It seems like I always am."

* * *

Grayson was surprised at how well the rest of the men handled Mariah. There were, of course, a great number of screamed questions. Two infantryman from the Concordat made very blatant threats but had been hushed down by their fellows when it was explained Mariah was leading them deeper into the facility. And one of the tankers—of course it would be one of the tankers—had half-jokingly asked her to dinner. Mariah had gracefully declined that offer without showing much other reaction.

He suspected most of the relatively calm reaction from his men was thanks to the crippling fatigue that was beginning to wind its way through the Legion. They'd been running for days, engaged in a knock-down fight before that, and suffered casualties throughout the process he couldn't even think about yet. All after carrying out an entire campaign on Sirius.

Worse, the casualties they'd taken recently included dependents and support staff who were never supposed to be in danger. His men were going numb and listless, thoughtlessly following commands because they still somehow trusted him to lead them to safety and deadening their own thoughts to hide from the fear and pain that grew there.

Which only made him notice how weird Mariah's reaction to everything was. He had expected some measure of 'cracking up' from her, just as he would from his own men after they'd been in battle for too long. God knew she deserved it just as, if not more than, they did. Waking up completely removed from everything you knew had to be at least as stressful as battle.

But instead of presenting any signs of that stress, other than an instant when she'd first awakened she'd not shown much of anything besides a logical approach to the problem. It was…offsetting, to put it mildly. She hadn't even asked about the Star League or the Successor States, or even _Kerensky_. Grayson had expected her to ask about Kerensky. Everything he'd ever read always seemed to present him as a legend of the SLDF even in his own time. All she'd asked about was who he was. What he was doing on Helm. Why mercenaries existed.

Why? The simple explanation was that she was triaging her own thoughts. Mimicking the listless following of orders his men were doing with a slightly different emphasis towards learning the basics of the new world she found herself in. But that didn't feel right as an explanation.

The simple fact was that she just didn't seem all that bothered by the events that had befallen her. Not for the moment anyhow. Maybe it would come? Maybe she was just hiding it very well? The more Grayson watched her, the more he became convinced it was neither of those possibilities.

After closing the camouflaged gate they had entered through, Mariah had led them to another rock outcropping inside the chamber. Apparently, it was coded to react only to wireless signals from Mariah's key and open only after the proper input-sequence was broadcast on the right frequency.

Gray didn't even pretend to understand it, which had seemed to push her into being even less animated about her situation than she was. She'd tried explaining it to the techs next. None of them had understood either, which had driven her to silence for a good twenty or thirty minutes.

What all of them could understand was the way what had looked like just another rock-face of the cavern had separated itself and opened after Mariah's complicated performance. Beyond had been what looked like a loading/unloading bay from inside a dropship, but expanded to a degree that was stunning. It was complete with both cargo and personnel shuttles for three entirely separate tunnel systems, where a dropship would have only had a single such track for everything.

Even the shuttles themselves were expanded versions of their dropship-sized selves. There was enough space for three 'Mechs and almost a hundred people on the one Mariah had led them onto. Perhaps most impressively, the motors still worked. With just the press of a button, the shuttle had noiselessly slid into motion carrying them deeper into the facility.

The facility itself was far larger than any of them had expected. Extending through the natural cavern they had entered from and into the depths of the mountain itself, portions of the complex had been dug-out by an underground river. But the League had expanded on that natural causeway over the course of decades to include a series of offshoots and storage shafts that turned the place into a virtual maze of crisscrossing passageways. The process had turned the entire mountain into a continuous facility, and lined the surrounding area with underground tunnels that would have allowed reinforcements to arrive anywhere in the Nagayan Range within a day at the most.

Gray knew that the find was going to make his men insufferable. Coming to the cache had been an act of desperation on his part, and now not only was it moving them towards safety it was moving them towards a treasure that Mariah freely admitted would still be there. He could hear them muttering amongst themselves about him as if he'd actually known what he was doing! It made him decidedly uncomfortable.

As the Star League officer led them around, Grayson also learned that the datastick he'd inherited had originally belonged to Edwin Keeler. Contrary to the history he'd read, Keeler had not been an engineer on the project but rather something very close to a madman in _charge_ of the project. Hawkins insisted the other Star League officer had intended on using the fortress as a safe-haven for himself and unleashing some kind of bioweapon on the planet.

What exactly he'd intended to accomplish with the plan she didn't explain. Maybe if he'd wanted to save his command inside the facility it would make sense? The Star League could be harsh in its application of 'justice' at times. But from the sound of it, Keeler had just been intent on saving himself inside the facility and letting the world burn around him and stranding himself on a dead planet.

Major Hawkins acidic account of the man didn't mesh with what Grayson had learned of him. He'd read a lengthy monologue in Keeler's journals that argued against such a harsh portrayal. Keeler had lamented that the League was disintegrating, the foundations of civilization crumbling, and the Great Houses descending into brutal, planet-destroying open warfare. His own words didn't sound like those of a madman.

Piled on top of her odd acceptance of the situation, her different account of Keeler was beginning to form a serious discrepancy that had him nervous about the recently-awakened woman.

As the shuttle noiselessly made its way through the mountain, Grayson let Lori handle speaking with the 'Major'. His attention was preoccupied trying to figure out what exactly it was the woman was lying to them about. It was obvious she wasn't telling them the whole truth, and she'd subtly pushed aside any questions about her own history by instead telling them more about the facility. She was avoiding something, but he couldn't put a finger on what. Was she a deserter? Desperate to paint her former commander in as dirty a light as she could before her own behavior was exposed? That seemed the logical explanation, but once again he sensed something much deeper at work. Something he couldn't put a finger on with logical explanations for her behavior.

He forcefully told the whispering voices in the back of his mind that she wasn't a ghost. That wasn't possible.

"So Keeler stored weapons here?" Lori asked, from behind Mariah, eyes focused on the holster at the Star League survivor's hip. Lori's pistol probably would have been jammed into the woman's back as well if he hadn't made a point of telling her not to.

"No. The League did. Keeler would have loved to get this much further in so he could portion out 'Mechs and weapons to his coconspirators and play them off against each other. But he was restricted to Alpha-level access." Mariah said. She pointed to an electronic board displaying the image of a locker that extended from the side of the cavern's walls. "This walkway will take us to the Main Depot on the west side of the mountain with a half-dozen stops in-between to bisect other passageways that lead to living facilities and the like. It is there that the weapons were stored."

Mariah paused, "These three upper levels alone could have held the entire population of Freeport, with no crowding. Even more easily if we took advantage of all the stasis-pods."

"But how did you get air? Power? Water? Food?" Lori pressed, either not noticing or not caring about the way Mariah's voice had begun to descend into melancholy.

"Recirculators and scrubbers handle the upper levels airflow. In the lower areas there's some of that supplemented by culture-production from the hydroponics sections. Fusion plant and geothermal for power, and there's an aquifer below us that provides—provided—would have provided water." Mariah hesitated, then a very subdued, sad smile spread on her face. "The Star League called it 'Ragnarok-proofing'. Providing its units, their families and necessary support staff with safe-haven in case of a world-destroying event so that they could emerge afterwards to fight whatever Chaos ensued. They seem to have been less successful than they wished."

Grayson stared at the back of the jumpsuit Mariah had changed into. She'd grown oddly distant-sounding in her final words. Once again, she wasn't telling them everything. That last sentence had made her sound less like a part of the Star League and more like another observer.

"Fascinating. It's…Magic." Lori muttered.

"No. It's not 'magic'. It's ingenuity mated to the technology to make it possible. Survival in the face of world-destroying events? It's a testament to humanity!" Mariah snapped, twisting around to give Lori a harsh stare. It was the first _strong_ emotion the woman had shown since almost puking after being woken up, and it was easily the most frightening. Grayson felt as if she were about to throttle Lori for the simple exclamation.

Lori looked like she was about to respond with something biting and sarcastic. Probably about the lack of surviving people inside the structure besides the Major. Lori could be a bit too confrontational sometimes.

"Let's just say our ancestors knew a thing or two that seems to have been forgotten." Grayson interrupted, trying to get in before the spat could escalate.

When both women rounded on him with unsatisfied looks, he tried changing the topic. "What fascinates me is what's been stored inside that memory core. A lot of what's been forgotten might be just sitting in there, waiting for us to dig it out."

"And just what fascinates you about that? Formulas for higher-yield explosives? Focusing diagrams to make more efficient lasers? All that wonderful information is undoubtedly going to fetch quite a price if things in the Inner Sphere are as backwards as you claim." Mariah spat, still sounding as if she were on the verge of hurting someone.

Grayson shrugged, "The terraforming-science portions are actually what caught my eye."

Lori looked at him as if he'd gone insane. Mariah just tilted her head at him as if she couldn't quite believe what he was saying.

"What? Lori, you've seen Trell and Sirius. The places are nightmare-worlds that are only getting worse. God knows I hated serving on them. I can only imagine how much worse it is to actually try and _live_ there. But that library might just hold the knowledge they need—construction techniques, weather manipulation, materials science, whatever—to make real, livable planets. Or at the very least keep the people from constantly facing the threat of freezing to death or getting baked by cosmic radiation."

"Desperation to survive does make people pay more, I suppose." Mariah turned back away from him, making it impossible for him to read her reaction. Her voice still contained a biting note to it, though.

"I was kind of planning on giving all of it away for free, actually." Grayson said, laughing "Safer that way. Whoever wanted this? They were willing and able to kill millions for it. I'd like to keep them from hunting me down and slitting my throat before I can sell it. And give them a firm kick in the teeth at the same time. In fact, I think I like that idea even more."

He offered a smile at the Star League major's back. "Businessman who fights for money. Not 'psychopathic murderer' or greedy over good-sense. I thought we'd settled all that already?"

She didn't respond.

"So. What about BattleMechs, major? How's this facility set for them" Lori asked after the silence began to grow somewhat awkward.

Mariah seemed to have settled down with the question, but sounded almost disappointed. "The main depot contains two BattleMech brigades with another scout lance split between the two outpost-entrances in the north and south pass. All in cold-storage, so they'll be fully functional once you reactivate them. If you came looking for 'Mechs, you will not leave unhappy."

It was sunset by the time they emerged into daylight again. The cargo-shuttle had taken them to another camouflaged doorway that, when opened, let them look out across the Vermillion Plains. Before they had opened it, however, they had been treated to the vision of rank upon silent rank of Star League BattleMechs in the Main Storage Area. There were arms and ammunition, missiles, and League communications equipment. Vehicles, most of them elegent fusion-powered beauties who had long since been cannibalized for their engines by House militaries, lined the space around and outside the 'Mech gantries.

Grayson was already picturing how the Legion's techs could move the bounty out of the facility and into the dropships. A broad, ferrocrete road half-hidden underneath centuries of foliage wound its way directly past the exit of the facility and dropped off to a broad plateau about a kilometer downhill. A good place for the dropships to land and an easy trip to make from the entrance to the cache.

"Gray! We've got the _Phobos_ on the TacNet! You're going to want to talk to them!" Lori called from behind him, waving from her place behind a cobbled-together mass of Star League comm equipment that was already coming in handy. Mariah sat in front of the other woman, fiddling with the dials and seeming to ignore everything around her.

It _seemed_ to be the way she was handling being tossed into the future. It probably wasn't healthy, but he didn't have the time or education to try and help her through it. He wasn't sure if anybody did. That was something it would be pretty hard to relate to. Not to mention he wasn't entirely sure it wasn't a cover for something else.

He had probably run faster before in his life, but never with quite as much hopeful excitement. If the dropships were already on the way in they could start loading them that night. By the time Ricol arrived the next day, his Legion could pull back to safety! No more of his people were going to die and Ricol would get the treasure Gray had promised.

Though he still had to decide on whether to mention Major Hawkins to the man.

Grayson snatched a pair of headphones from Lori when he reached the table. "Use you bastard, it's good to hear from you."

"Well, it's good to finally be free of our friendly local authorities. What took the cavalry so long, boss?" Came the reply.

Gray marveled at the lack of static or distortion in the transmission. He could understand why Lori would call any of the tech the League had produced magic. Even the best gear he'd used would have dropped Use's voice an octave or missed a syllable or two in his speech transmitting over such a distance. The Star League equipment did none of that, and it had been sitting unused and without maintenance for centuries!

"Unavoidable delay, I'm afraid. Just be glad they finally did arrive. You've got coordinates to get to us?"

"Sure do, but you've got a bigger problem. We sailed over it a few minutes ago…You got two companies of Free Worlds League 'Mechs with some infantry and armor support starting to set up shop at the entrance to that facility ya'all dropped into. They could have 'Mechs through those passes and coming on to you by morning."

Grayson made sure his finger was off the 'transmit' key so that the string of curses Lori began to weave wouldn't be sent over the airwaves. She could really be quite inventive in her use of metaphor when she wanted to be. He counted a half-dozen ways she declared the enemies should have physically-impossible relations with themselves without her needing to use any single word twice.

Much as he might want to join in on the profanity, it would do his unit no good to see him quite that panicked. Even if he was _more_ panicked. If that many 'Mechs came through the passes while the dropships were loading…Well, none of them would live long enough to enjoy the fruits of their bounty.

"Calm yourself. The time doesn't yet call for such language." Mariah said softly, voice _still_ echoing with some kind of disappointment as she reached one hand out to rest against Lori's shoulder.

"No, this is the perfect time for such language. See, when regular people find themselves in situations they don't wish to be in, they sometimes show a little _emotion_ about that situation instead of dull acceptance!" Lori screamed, rounding on the other woman and swatting the hand away.

The major, quite uncharacteristically, visibly flinched at that statement. She leaned backwards and her eyes went wide as both hands dropped to her side in a neutral stance that might be complete dismissal or might be the opening movement to a fistfight.

Grayson suddenly got the image of a lost puppy that had been kicked one too many times rounding on its assailant with small teeth and forcing them to back off from irrational fear. A few moments later, he realized that Mariah was completely right in telling Lori to calm down. Because there was still something they could do to slow the League force down. Though he resented the way his own analogy forced him to view himself as a puppy.

If he lived through this, he was getting a dog. A big one.

"So don't tell me to calm down. It doesn't make sense coming from—"

"Lori, calm down." Grayson almost whispered.

Lori quit ranting but fixed a very unhappy glare on him.

"I think I've got an idea to slow them down. But we'll need the Major's help once again to do it. So…Try to be on your best behavior with her for a little while longer, hon?" Grayson continued in the same whisper. He realized what he'd ended his words with only after he'd said it.

Lori had never been as comfortable as he was with public expression of affection. That was quite obvious by the way her eyes darted around to the other members of the Legion who were within earshot. All of whom had somehow found all manner of other things to do.

"Alright. Fine. But what do we need her help for? We're not going to get any of these 'Mechs fired up in time for her to use it—for all the good a League _sailor_ would do in one, anyways." Lori muttered, shifting her head as if trying to decide whether she wanted to glare at Grayson or Mariah.

"We don't need her in a 'Mech. We need her to keep helping us use the facility's transportation network. The Free Worlders are going to have to go through the passes to reach us, right? It looks to me like if we play our cards right we can show up uninvited somewhere really inconvenient for them and hand them an ass-whupping."

"The sage Changqing said 'Take advantage of others' failure to catch-up. Go by routes they do not expect. Attack where they are not on guard." Mariah said slowly, eyes focused on the horizon. Her lips quirked slightly, "And if you die in battle do not despair for with death comes hope and rebirth."

"Well. _That's_ inspiring. Personally, I think I'll stick with my present plan of _not dying at all_." Lori growled, rolling her eyes and rotating on the back of one foot to stalk away. "I'll go get the other officers. Just try to keep the font of positivity there from saying anything else helpful around them."

Mariah offered a wordless nod to the other woman's departing back.

"I promise she's very nice once you get to know her." Grayson said with a chuckle.

"Most people are." Mariah agreed tonelessly, still staring after Lori.

Grayson took a long breath at the cryptic answer and let his eyes close for a moment. How long had it been since he'd had a solid night's sleep? 'Too long' was all the answer he could come up with. He was tired. He was sore. He felt like he'd been in a constant, hectic motion since he'd landed on Helm. Going from one crisis to another with no chance in-between to recover.

He didn't know how long he stood there, but a faint glow against his eyelids brought him back to reality. Blinking a few times, he stared at the source of the offending light. The _Phobos_ and the _Deimos_ were coming in for a landing, blazing-white tails of fusion-powered flame shooting from their undersides as they slowed their descent. Maybe, just maybe, his men and him would make it off of Helm alive after all.

"Beautiful, isn't it? Mankind could have given up on the stars centuries ago, but instead constantly fights to rise-up to their level. As much as things might have changed, it's comforting to see _that,_ at least, stays the same." Mariah said, head swaying lightly side-to-side in rhythm with the gentle movement of the flame underneath the dropship as it descended.

Grayson was somewhat surprised the woman was still there, but she seemed intent on staying seated where she was until the ships came down. She seemed to be utterly transfixed by the dropships, tracing them repeatedly with her eyes as they came closer. Besides her words, she didn't even seem to acknowledge Grayson's existence.

Once again, he was struck by the feeling there was much more to her than she was telling.

"When this is over, no more of the cute sidestepping you've been doing all day, alright? I'm going to get some real answers from you if I live through this." Grayson said, feeling an enormous weight lift off his shoulders as the first dropship touched down.

"You will." Mariah said slowly, eyes still focused on the spear of fire coming from the one dropship still on the last leg of its approach.

Grayson nodded and turned away before the other dropship had set down. He didn't know why, but he actually believed the woman when she said that—on both points. He rubbed his eyes with one hand, and then held it out before him to the sky.

He was twenty-four. Still remarkably young. The best years of his life ahead of him, according to many.

He was _way_ too old for this shit.


	3. Chapter 3 - Making up the Difference

**Star League Castle Brian  
Inside Nagayan Mountain, Helm  
17 June 3028**

Reactivating the other underground passageways had proven just as easy as reactivating the first, and Grayson had spent much of the travel-time once again marveling at Star League technology. He had always unconsciously recognized that the 'Mechs in service throughout the Inner Sphere and beyond were largely the relics of a bygone age only occasionally supplemented by new production, but that kind of long-lived technology was much more obvious in this underground chamber completely untouched by the centuries of warfare that had plagued the Inner Sphere.

What time he didn't spend in wonder he had to devote to trying to keep Lori from tearing Mariah's head off. Much as he shared her curiosity about, and even distrust of, the Star League officer, he didn't want to give her any reason to quit helping them. They needed her.

Hopefully, she needed them just as badly. Because he'd seen the horror tri-vid where a strange person took unsuspecting mercenaries into her underground lair on the excuse of helping them.

Sitting at the foot of his _Marauder,_ Grayson fought against eyelids that wanted to close. He could tell that it was a losing proposition if he remained seated, and quickly stood so that he could try and fight-off the fatigue. The room shifted more than it should have from the small movement, and he couldn't fight down a long and very loud yawn.

He'd caught a few hours of sleep in the cockpit the previous evening, waiting for the first elements of the Marik forces to arrive. But the firefight that had ensued had sapped him of whatever recuperation the nap might have provided. He and the other Mechwarriors of the Gray Death had fought a running retreat through the Vermillion Pass, leapfrogging between the hidden entrances and exits of the Star League facility. Hitting them where they least expected it and then vanishing back underground. Sleep had been an idea he approved of that never got put into practice.

Even fought by his bunch of fatigued shellshocked survivors, it had been like something out of an _Immortal Warrior_ trivid. Grayson could only remember the events in brief snippets that managed to distinguish themselves from an otherwise jumbled mess of action and near-panic. McCall screaming insults in Gaelic as his _Rifleman_ sheared a _Wasp_ in half mid-jump, sending the torso to the ground and the legs into the mountainside beyond. Charles Bear ramming his _Crusader_ into an enemy 'Mech and sending it sliding down the mountain on its side, rolling over a pair of troop carriers in the process. The autocannon of his own _Marauder_ clicking empty during the last major push the Marik forces had made, which had robbed him of any response to the salvo of medium lasers that had clawed every ounce of armor off his 'Mech's back. Through it all, none of his men had died.

But now they had to do it again, and every 'Mech in the unit had suffered significant battle-damage of some sort or another. Grayson had never tended to put much stock in the calculation, but the combat loss grouping weight was pretty heavily in favor of the enemy.

The worst of it was, they hadn't been able to slow them down enough. Men and women he'd evacuated were still loading onto the dropships, and he hadn't yet received word from his techs that the memory core had been copied. Until both of those were done, he couldn't leave. Particularly since it would leave Ricol's freshly-arrived dropships completely exposed to attack, and that was something he'd given his word he wouldn't do.

No. Grayson knew he had to fight. As did the rest of his Gray Death Legion. What remained of it.

"He can't make us do this. He can't make us do this. He can't make us do this."

The voice drew Grayson out of his reverie and he realized his eyes had snuck their way closed. He popped them open in time to see Jason, the newest Mechwarrior in the unit, stagger his way past with his eyes locked firmly on the ground. Both his arms were wrapped around his chest, and he seemed to shudder with every step. Apparently, the man hadn't seen him though. Which was probably for the best, considering who his complaint was undoubtedly referring to.

Grayson began to speak up, but whatever he'd been about to say died in his throat. There wasn't exactly anything that could be said and maintaining discipline at this late hour was an exercise in pointlessness. Besides, he kind of wanted Jason to disappear. The _Stinger_ the young man—a boy, really—was piloting would be little more than a momentary target in the upcoming scrap. With its fused-together knee joint, the speed which served the light 'Mech as its only real asset was completely gone.

Desertion might be contemptible, but Grayson thought it would be nice to know at least one man had made it out alive. Did it really matter how that happened?

"This is it, isn't it Gray?" Lori said from beside him. When had she snuck up on him? Probably when his eyes were closed. Shit, had he been sleeping?

Lori nodded after Jason, when Grayson was silent for too long. "He knows it. You know it. The rest of us know it. Nobody wants to say it though."

"Because that would break the spell that's kept us all alive so far." Gray said, trying but failing to smile. "Though the idea did occur to me that three or four of us might be able to hold them off long enough for the rest to escape. I would have floated the idea to the others, but I don't think anybody would have volunteered to be the one who tried to knock you unconscious, tie you up, and drag you onto one of the dropships."

"Damn right they wouldn't have. I'm in this with you, idiot!"

"You always did show terrible judgement, hon."

They both shared a comfortable silence with that, staring together after Jason. The man had made his way to his 'Mech and begun inspecting the fused leg-joint as if he might be able to do something about it. Mariah, in a surprisingly human gesture for the usually stolid and almost-emotionless woman, showed up beside the man and offered him a mug.

"What are you going to do with her?"

Grayson shrugged, "I'm probably not going to be involved much longer, but she's kept up her end of the bargain. If she wants off the planet so badly, she can hitch a ride on one of the dropships. Lieutenant Use already knows she's free to come on-board no questions asked. We wouldn't have made it this long without her. Only fair she lives through this."

"I don't know. Seems to me if I were in her position I wouldn't be too interested in living." Lori bit her lip, "Two centuries from anything she knows? Her country gone, her family dead, everyone she served with dead? Her home has probably been taken-over by one of the Successor States…If it wasn't decimated beyond supporting life in one of the first two Succession Wars. Doesn't sound like a happy life to me, living in the shadow of all that death. I think I'd almost prefer dying somewhere with people I knew."

There was a slight pause, "Grayson," Lori said, staring at what had to be the oldest person in the universe and quite obviously avoiding any eye-contact with him. "I love you."

"I love you too."

He didn't know how long they stood there in quiet agreement.

Grayson shook, and slowly turned in a full circle so he could take-in the few 'Mechs that remained of his command. McCall's one-armed _Rifleman._ The _Phoenix Hawk_ that Tracy Kent had inherited from her father and now had a trio of holes in its chest that penetrated all the way down to the engine. He still had then damnable feeling that he was going to live. But now it was paired with a dark question in the back of his mind that asked which of them he would never see again.

Perhaps Lori was right? Maybe it would be better to die with people you knew. But that was just too cut-and-dry for Grayson. There was more to life than dying.

Grayson's comm squawked lightly and he heard the constant white-noise of an active transmission. "Boss? Lieutenant Dan is reporting movement in the pass up above. Nineteen 'Mechs with some hovertank support. He estimates ten minutes, fifteen at the most, before they're rolling right over our present location. We're bugging out…Godspeed, sir."

A feeling very much like peace found its way into Grayson, and he realized he was no longer tired. The memory core was worth dying for. He didn't know how many of those following him believed that. He wasn't even sure Lori did. But he did. That was enough.

"Gray Death! Mount up!"

The words echoed across the underground chamber as he began to climb his way back into his _Marauder_. Around him, he was surprised to see, every one of his men responded to the call. Out of the corner of one eye, Gray even caught the hatch of Jason's S _tinger_ swing closed as he wormed his way into his own 'Mech's cockpit. If that wasn't testament to the boy's honor, Gray didn't know what was.

God he loved his men! If anybody could do the impossible that he was asking of them, it was those following him today.

And now, he had to see which of them would die. Unfortunate. But knowledge? The chance for a better future? _Hope_? That wasn't such a bad thing to die for, was it?

His dad would've called him out for being a damn-fool romantic by now, thinking those kinds of thoughts. But damned if he could help himself. Maybe that would prove to be an interesting discussion if he reached whatever afterlife there might be. Even if he failed, at least he had the chance of dying for something more than just a contract.

And that felt surprisingly good for a change.

Grayson settled himself into the piloting couch, finding the spot where years of repeated, sweaty use had worn the padding into an almost perfect shape. With his hands, he reached behind him and lowered the neurohelmet down over his head. In his youth training to be a Mechwarrior he had once made the mistake of not connecting the helmet before activating the 'Mech, dropping it face-first onto the ground the instant he did. The memory of replacing every panel on the front of that LoaderMech had kept him from ever repeating the mistake.

Grayson smiled as he settled the neurohelmet over his head and began the abbreviated start-up procedure for his 'Mech. He endured the momentary vertigo as the helmet synched with him, then checked over his status display.

"Master's on. Brakes are set. Contact!" Grayson said to himself as he flipped the _Marauder_ from 'standby' to 'active'. It was a traditional pre-start mantra his father had passed on to him, and once more he kicked himself for not finding the time to track down just what it came from.

"Input password." said the 'Mech's artificially-generated voice.

Grayson punched in his code.

"Reactor, online. Sensors, online. Weapons, online. Insufficient ammo, AC-ten. Two heat-sinks inoperable. HiRez targeting system out of alignment. AC linkage—"

Grayson flicked an override that let the computer know that he didn't need the list of damaged and inoperable systems read out to him. He would be here too long if he waited for the halting, vaguely condescending voice to go through the entire list of failure points and malfunctions. Was it so hard to program a simple 'No systems nominal' message into the damned thing to let him know when it was beat to shit?

On the bright side, his external speakers were still functioning. "Major Hawkins, I appreciate everything you've done for us. If you would be so kind as to activate the lift to the surface? Then feel free to return to the dropships and they will take you wherever you wish to go."

* * *

Mariah had accompanied Grayson's men to the surface only once the entire night.

Curious about the other Mechwarriors in the blonde-haired commander's unit, she had taken the opportunity of the slow approach to the surface to be introduced to them. Thinking one of them might be responsible for the odd aura that had seemed to be slowly building among the Gray Death Legion, she had also quietly kept a close eye on them via their 'Mech's subsystems even when they thought they were alone.

But none of them had shown any indication of being of…questionable…soul. The closest, Hassan Ali Khaled, had radiated a dangerous vibe in the way he had made what preparations he could to his 'Mech. Even in his relaxed moments he moved with the stealthy step-step-pause of a predator. But his vagaries seemed to be echoes from a previous life he had put behind him rather than anything Darker.

Everything became much clearer when she accompanied them aboveground. Unfortunately, it also became much more complicated.

The Free Worlds League 'Mechs were moving up the mountain underneath a curtain of negative energy. A massive column of dark clouds seeming to shift and warp to accompany every movement of the machines underneath them. It was something very much like the outflow boundary that went ahead of a storm. Or, perhaps more appropriately considering it was invisible to Grayson and his men, it was like the K-F field that formed when a Jumpship used its drive.

It was the only evidence she had needed to cement in her mind that the Gray Death Legion was in the right. Human authorities could be so easily manipulated, after all. These Free Worlders, General Kerensky, the Star League itself…There were uncountable instances. But usually the Dark Chaos that attempted such things was more subtle. Acting through agents rather than directly moving pieces around. Even Stefan Amaris had been generations removed from the Dark that was partially responsible for his family's corruption.

Where it became complicated was devising a way of assisting the Gray Death without exposing herself completely. Partially was acceptable. The Star League could be held responsible for its experiments this far into the future without any complications. But the best protection any prospective Others had was in the Dark's continued ignorance of the existence of the other part of her.

Plus, the other part of her was a blank, emotionless bitch.

Which was why instead of marching out alongside the Gray Death with nothing but a glaive, she had played the friendly idiot routine and brought a cup of 'coffee' to Jason.

Drugs were Bad. But sometimes, drugs could be good! Especially their effects. Most especially when she was the one using them on someone else. That was always a preferable situation to drugs being used on her. She hadn't even needed to use needles to knock him out. Needles were too mean.

Mariah flexed her hands over the control-sticks of the _Stinger,_ and absently rearranged a few of the panels around her so she didn't have to crane her head as much to see them. Neither actually did much to make her feel more comfortable in the cramped cockpit, but she had to try anyways. It had been a _very_ long time since she had last piloted a 'Mech.

But the odd sensations she'd been receiving from the Gray Death Legion almost required it. Their times had been changing far too much over the course of the last few hours. By _decades_ in the case of the one she had drugged.

The problem was that she was most definitely not the one that should be confronting the Dark Silence that was closing-in on the Gray Death Legion. It wasn't her duty. It wasn't within her purview.

But she was the only one here to do it. Letting the Gray Death die because of the interference of forces which should not be interfering wasn't an option. She liked it much more when there were options. Since she didn't know any that she could do immediately that wouldn't be…problematic…for the entire planet of Helm, commandeering one of the Legion's 'Mechs was a simple way of possibly creating a few more.

Besides, the best way of getting someone to do something was to give them something they wanted. She could tell the Mechwarriors of the Gray Death wanted to live. They had simply accepted dying as a necessity. She could correct that mistaken assumption and then, as thanks, be given transport off-planet.

It was completely logical and necessary and had nothing to do with the fact that she kind of liked them. Helping them was just the best course of action for accomplishing her duty. She was being _responsible_ by getting in her own 'Mech to assist them.

Mariah moved the master switch from 'standby' to 'active'.

"Input password."

Okay, maybe it wasn't 'her own' 'Mech. It might _technically_ still belong to someone else. But if he didn't want her to use it in his place he would have said something. Even if saying something would have been difficult for someone who was knocked out.

Now that she thought about it, she probably should have gotten the password from the pilot. But he'd been very thirsty and drained the drugged mug of coffee she'd brought him rather more quickly than she'd thought he would. She'd had to drag him away before his slumping form attracted the attention of any of the other Mechwarriors. It was his fault for being so gluttonous that she hadn't gotten the password and had to resort to more…morally questionable…methods to pilot his 'Mech.

Ignoring the absolutely _barbaric_ neurohelmet that was perched behind the piloting couch, Mariah did take the opportunity to shrug into the cooling vest that Jason had spread across the side of the cockpit. It was still moist and sweaty from use, and she had to fight down a shudder of disgust as she strapped it on. Unlike the neurohelmet, the vest was important.

That simple preparation done, Mariah closed her eyes and hoped that everything would still work.

 _Activating Neural Network Secondary Systems…Connection established._

Mariah sighed. One hurdle down. But more concerning than the interface were the passphrases. If technology had stagnated as much as Grayson said, then maybe this would work. Maybe. If it didn't, at least a light scout 'Mech wasn't a lot of firepower for the Gray Death to go without.

"Duchess Saturn requests this unit run the Kincaid program." Mariah said, annunciating every word carefully. Her tongue felt like lead in her mouth, and there was a pulsating buzz in the center of her head.

 _Working…_

The buzzing in her head grew more insistent, crashing its way forward until it felt like it was directly behind her eyes then reversing direction and running down her spine.

 _Working…_

It had been so long. Would the program still work? Perhaps Grayson had been lying? Exaggerating? Perhaps 'Mech designers had made changes that would—

 _Authorized._

"Pilot approved. This unit awaits your demands, Duchess."

Mariah nodded in slight satisfaction before her face returned to passivity. Sometimes the noble titles she and the Others had been granted could be useful, but hindsight let her see how much the things had divided them amongst themselves. How much titles and political influence had become a barrier to doing their duty.

It was amazing how one simple word could make the cockpit feel so uncomfortable.

Screens in front of her buzzed to life, the cavern around her slowly fading into focus on the display-screens that surrounded her piloting-couch. The start-up fuzz and blur on the screens was typical for the economy-minded House-trash 'Mechs that didn't use proper organic light-emitting diodes, but she was slightly surprised to see it so far into the future. Obviously, Grayson hadn't been lying about the stagnation of technology.

 _Security systems disengaged. Reactor online. Sensors online. Weapons online. Left-leg actuator malfunctioning. Estimated top-speed: Twenty-nine kilometers-per-hour. Additionally…_

A fountain of information blossomed in Mariah's mind. Myomers in the right arm were performing at only ninety-three percent efficiency due to a minute dead spot in the fiber-bundle. Armor that had melted from a medium laser hit had coalesced at a point that actually provided a slight degree of additional protection to the lower-torso. External air pressure and temperature at her current location was estimated to provide a four percent increase in heat dissipation efficiency until it dropped to zero in the next two to three minutes from slowly-rising temperatures inside the cavern caused by the start-up bloom of the dozen Gray Death Legion 'Mechs. The focus on the right arm's medium laser was one-sixteenth of a degree out of alignment, so the beam would begin to lose coherence at two-hundred sixty-two meters instead of two-seventy. Air currents flowing over the barrel of the laser system when she wasn't in motion would carry heat away from it at a rate of—

Mariah shook her head against the tidal wave of information that was battering at her consciousness. She always managed to forget how disorienting the initial connection could be. Forcing her eyes open, she began to identify items in the cockpit to fight back the readouts and infographic displays that insisted on clouding her attention. At her lower-left were the controls for the weapons. The manual systems readout was mounted above that—not that she'd be using it. Sitting beside the two panels was the pilot's hand.

No. Resting beside the two panels was _her hand_.

She concentrated on the physical side of herself as much as she could. With a concentration that was beginning to bead sweat on her forehead, she told myomer bundles in her own body—not the 'Mech's—to tighten. The fingers of her left hand curled downwards into a fist, and the 'Mech didn't shift from its position. She'd been trying to just touch her fingertips to her palm, but a fist was close enough. Just so long as there was a distinction between her movement as a biomechanical body and her movement as a biologically-driven machine.

Which one of those was she again? The former? The latter? Both? Neither? The Others had never had to put up with this when they piloted a 'Mech! But then, that was because they had solid answers to the question…

Grayson's voice put a thankful end to that line of questioning. "Major Hawkins, I appreciate everything you've done for us. If you would be so kind as to activate the lift to the surface? Then, feel free to return to the dropships and they will take you wherever you wish to go once everyone else is aboard."

He didn't sound like a man who believed he was going to live.

With a thought—sent through her 'Mech—Mariah started the lift.

The last half-dozen times the Gray Death Legion's Mechwarriors had ascended upwards on similar lifts, Mariah had picked up snippets of chatter between them as they left. They had thrown lighthearted jokes at one another, or given the occasional admonition to be careful. On the first trip up, a few had even indulged in bets over who would deal more damage or rack up more kills. There was none of that this time. They all seemed to have agreed to let each other alone this time. Even Lori and Grayson, who had tended to strategize and bounce ideas off one another, were quiet.

Normally, Mariah would have been comfortable with such silence. It was her patron as much as she was its, and the silence of those committed to their goals was one she could always respect. But there was an undercurrent in this Silence that was distinctly not as it should be. Something was warping it to be less profound and more disparaging than it was supposed to.

That feeling only became worse as the lift brought them closer to the surface of the planet. Every passing moment inflated the pressure in her soul that warned of some dark presence nearby. She was half-tempted to open a channel and ask if anybody else felt it, but that would inspire too many questions.

Shuddering slightly and repositioning herself on the pilot's couch, Mariah focused on manually checking the 'Mech's various subsystems. It was a decent distraction from the slowly building aura of Dark Silence that was forming, much more quickly and with much more ferocity this time than the first time she'd taken a lift to the surface the previous night.

They emerged only a few minutes later to the sun-baked rock of the Vermillion Pass. A few small patches of snow that stubbornly clung to life at these high altitudes throughout the summer broke-up the monotony of the otherwise dull grey and brown mountainside. A little below them, the pass widened significantly to the point it could fit easily fit a dozen 'Mechs side-by-side. But where they stood, it was still slightly more narrow.

The dropships weren't quite visible from where they were, but that was only because the mountain itself still got in the way. By air, they were only a few tens of kilometers away. Once someone got through the pass, it would take them only minutes to get to the dropships. Which was undoubtedly why Grayson was so intent on stopping the Free Worlds League forces here.

She would do what she could to make sure that happened. Because either the Marik commander or this 'ComStar Precentor' Grayson had told him about were the cause of the troubles.

In either case, it didn't change what she needed to do. Find them. Silence them. Using only the 'Mech. The last one was what made it so hard.

 _All pilot safeties disabled. All electronic and engine safety interlocks disabled. Automatic shutdown priorities overridden. Datacom device bus shifted from one-hundred thirty-three megahertz to one-hundred sixty-eight and clock multiplier increased by seven._

The temperature in the cockpit almost immediately spiked, and she felt the beginnings of discomfort at the heat. The physical readout at her bottom-left crackled with static for a moment from the heat, but recovered quickly. In her mind, Mariah had already run down the glitch that was responsible and corrected it. For now, anyways. It might cause trouble again when heat became a problem.

The 'Mech was as ready as it would ever be. What about herself?

Mariah settled herself into the piloting couch of the 'Mech and leaned her head back. Careful to only move her own hand, she ran it through shoulder-length black hair and made sure it was free of any obstructions.

 _Myomer waste-heat disposal increased to one-hundred percent._

 _Bodily thermoregulation mechanisms set to maximum._

Goose-bumps spiked to life on her arms, and Mariah's teeth began to absently chatter against each other as her entire body began shaking to combat the sudden chill. She was glad she'd fiddled with the 'Mech's systems first, otherwise it would have been even worse.

 _Protein-filament insulator analog deactivated—stranded heat-sinks activated._

Her head went absolutely freezing as the heat-sinks did their job a little too well. Mariah curled her arms to her sides as tightly as she could and tried to focus on something else. She was tempted to remove the power from the vest that kept its fluid circulating, but decided against it. Soon enough the cockpit would be warmer again.

 _Twenty-three percent power remaining for Tertiary Neural Network. Estimate five minutes of open combat at current consumption rates before dormancy levels are reached and coma is induced._

Mariah sighed. That rate of consumption would be going up, so the time available to her would be dropping. She'd just have to make her point in a few minutes. Which shouldn't be too difficult up against _House-trash_ units. If she couldn't make a decent showing of herself against typical Mechwarriors it would be…embarrassing. Doctor Atlas would probably rise from his grave just to die of embarrassment again if they beat _her_. Even if she was in a scout 'Mech armed with a piddling pair of medium lasers.

In fact, the lightly-armed and even more lightly-armored 'Mech might just help her make the point. These barbarians who fancied themselves the lords of the battlefield in their cute, hand-me-down BattleMechs wouldn't take notice if she was too subtle.

Besides, she'd long ago learned she _enjoyed_ indulging in overdramatic idiocy so long as it was only her doing it. It was probably something she'd picked up from the last incarnation of Serenity.

Mariah shook aside the small, sad smile that had formed at that thought as the Free Worlders 'Mechs came into view. Four full lances—sixteen 'Mechs in total—marched up the pass toward her and the other eleven badly-damaged members of the Gray Death. The tickle of transmissions coming from them started behind her eyes, and she was tempted to detail a small bit of her mind to working on breaking their codes. From how it felt, they had to be talking amongst themselves a lot. She resisted the urge, though. She had more productive uses of the processing power, and brute-force codebreaking ate power like very little else.

The Gray Death, in contrast, remained completely silent on their comms. It was like the silence of the dead. Or, perhaps, more like the silence of the gray dead!

Following the advice of long-dead friends, Mariah physically removed one hand from the piloting stick and slapped it against her own cheek. She just barely stopped her _Stinger_ from mimicking the action, and its Riese compound-100 armored fist stopped only a few meters from the fragile sensor-housing that served as its 'head'.

She needed to be more careful.

"Jason? Ye' alright over there?" The thickly-accented voice of Davis McCall spoke through her com. His voice seemed to break whatever spell had been over the other members of the Gray Death and they started transmitting between themselves.

Mariah experienced a very unpleasant sensation of…something…up her spine, and slowly moved her 'Mech into a more standard position. She offered a pair of clicks on the intercom in answer.

"Tha's a good lad. Just be sure to save the fisting for tha' poor bastards over there, eh?" McCall continued, his voice lilting up and down as if he'd said something funny. Which he hadn't.

Ohhh. It was a double entendre. How quaint and unfunny.

Shaking aside the distractions, Mariah turned her attention back to the opposition. One of the Marik BattleMechs had hung back from the others and took up a position on a small rise, a coterie of smaller vehicles flanking it. Judging from its position and transmission patterns, the 'Mech was probably the Marik forces' commander. Her suspicion was confirmed by her magnified view as she watched the cockpit of the _Warhammer_ open and a uniformed man with the shoulder-boards of a Colonel remove himself from the 'Mech.

Mariah took more interest in one of the open-topped hovercraft at the _Warhammer's_ feet. A half-dozen robed individuals were the only occupants, and Mariah might easily have dismissed them as irrelevant. A bizarrely dressed group with no bearing on the battle. But at their head was a man who radiated a sense of _wrongness_ she had last felt in Edwin Keeler, the genocidal maniac who had blown up Freeport.

Mariah had listened with half an ear to Grayson's complaints about the business come techno-cult 'ComStar' setting him up, largely certain the matter was none of her concern. Minor conflicts over resources were little real concern for her, even if she did like some of those participating in it.

But feeling the waves of malicious energy coming from the man and shrouding the entire Marik force in its wake, she realized who was channeling the Dark onto the planet. That _thing_ which cloaked itself in the skin of a man was intent on destroying the Library. She could _feel_ its glee at the idea. Sense in her very soul that it thought quite highly of itself for manipulating humans to kill each other over what would amount to little more than shiny baubles. It was responsible for the Dark Silence that seemed to hang over all of them.

Mariah scanned the Marik formation as she mentally calculated how far her jump jets could take her towards the hovercraft. It wasn't going to be enough. She would need to fight her way there. And then…She would have to think of what to do then. She wasn't exactly capable of purifying the thing. If that was even possible.

Hell, without calling upon the other part of her she wouldn't even be capable of confronting the thing. But perhaps she could surprise it enough to make it run. The opposing force might be more open to reason without the thing's presence clouding their judgement.

"Range is five-hundred meters." Grayson said over the coms. He paused a moment, then continued in a more broken voice. "Gray Death! Home is the regiment. Up weapons! Prepare to _charge_."

Mariah wasn't quite sure what the middle statement meant. But she had to admit, it certainly _sounded_ profound. Grayson seemed to have chosen the route of the doomed knight. Charging out from a besieged city so that its occupants might be spared the horrors of the battle. It was very noble, in the most old-fashioned sense.

She wasn't willing to put up with something so pointless and wasteful. In a walled-off and perpetually silent portion of herself, she could even feel the agreement of the other part of her.

Not bothering to wait for Grayson's order, Mariah pushed her _Stinger_ forward on its one good leg and activated its jump-jets. The cockpit shuddered around her and spiked in temperature as the fusion engine below her funneled its power into concentrated jets of plasma at the 'Mech's feet.

For one terribly long second, nothing seemed to happen. But moments later the air rushing over her body and the telltale sinking feeling in her stomach told her she was rising—the 'Mech was rising with her inside. Mariah shook her head to clear it of the sensory illusion.

A trilling alarm that drilled its way into her head in the next moment let her know that shooting into the air had attracted the attention of at least one targeting system. An instant later the insistent warning beeps shifted in tone to a much more concerning solid tone that warned of incoming missiles. It was actually an impressive lock-on time. Whoever had her in their sights was good at their job.

But skill could only get one so far.

Mariah reached out with the small portion of her mind that remained distant and unconnected to the 'Mech, gritting her teeth she even went hat-in-hand to the Other inside her to request help. The request was granted. 'It would be rude to refuse the vessel' or something was probably how She would put it.

Twisting her consciousness into the realm of physical laws, Mariah momentarily watched as radar waves impacted against the armored hull of her _Stinger_. As it blazed in the infrared spectrum against the much cooler backdrop of the ground behind it. As a cloud of energy output and emissions signatures outlined it in existence.

" _Silence_." The woman in the cockpit spoke, the single word seeming to disappear into the air around her.

The beeping died instantaneously as she vanished from sensors. In the sudden quiet of the cockpit, Mariah closed her eyes, and for one moment reveled in the sensory input coming directly from her _Stinger_. Jump-jets still burning and pushing air over the rest of her body, she rose further into the air. Unable to track their targets themselves, the missiles that had been approaching her chased after the last position she had been seen. They passed a dozen meters under her feet, the flares from their engines slightly warming her toes.

She probably could have played that particular card earlier, but this way might inspire whatever analog of fear the Dark thing she was trying to reach might be able to feel. It was so much more _dramatic_.

Feathering the power into the jets, Mariah let herself begin to drop back down towards the ground. A blue-tinted beam of charged particles illuminated an area a few meters above her right-shoulder. It was like a miniature bolt of lightning, and like lightning it sent tingles through her body. She could only imagine what kind of confused frustration the pilot responsible for the PPC shot felt at his targeting computer's failure to lock on her.

"Gray Death! Charge! Jason, what the _hell_ are you doing?"

Mariah dragged her senses apart from the _Stinger's_ and smirked. Grayson's command, and his questioning of her actions, was a full six seconds slower than she'd expected. If someone who seemed as cool under pressure as he did was that shaken, it suggested the Marik forces would be hit even worse by the sensation. Perhaps even the Dark thing would feel it. She could only hoppe.

"I apologize Colonel. Should I have waited for the order to charge? Your futuristic orders were confusing to me." Mariah answered flatly, slightly distracted as she carefully brought her 'Mech back down to the ground. The process was complicated by the frozen actuator, but nothing she couldn't handle.

As if to greet her as she landed, a _Rifleman_ blasted at her with the twin autocannons it mounted on each 'arm'. The shells impacted all around her—her 'Mech's—feet, but the only damage they did was to the ground as their impact sent mounds of dirt flying into the sky and onto the paper-thin armor of her 'Mech's legs.

"M—Major Hawkins?" Grayson stammered. He seemed to take refuge in using the rank she'd given him, perhaps as a way of reminding himself of something he knew about her. In which case the falsity of the rank and name as her own was an ironic twist. It might be too confusing for the poor man if she brought that particular wrinkle up at the moment, though. He probably wouldn't appreciate the humor at a time like this.

"More or less Colonel Carlyle. I apologize, but I had to…borrow…one of your men's BattleMech's," Mariah said, limping her _Stinger_ forward. She fired one of her lasers at the _Rifleman_ that had been trying to hit her a moment earlier, pushing the cockpit from feeling somewhat cool into almost comfortable.

 _Revised estimate. Three minutes forty-five seconds to Tertiary Network dormancy._

She was much more successful in her shot than the other Mechwarrior had been in their own. The pulsating, scarlet beam impacted against the housing that contained the large laser on the right 'arm' of the _Rifleman_. The molten slag that resulted oozed downwards and blocked the autocannon below.

In response to the attack, what would have been a terrifying amount of firepower impacted around her as even more of the Free Worlders tried to hit her. Lasers blasted dirt and gravel into flat, almost-glasslike surfaces. Missiles of all varieties and sizes pockmarked the ground with blast craters, one batch even spewing a trail of flame out across the rock as they struck. Some nutjob had actually mounted inferno missiles in their 'Mech!

While it was impressive none of them had figured out the counter to her simple deception, it wouldn't last forever. But it didn't have to. It just had to last until she reached the thing which cloaked itself in a man.

"I am sorry to say I do not believe I will be able to return it in one piece, either." Mariah continued to Grayson as if nothing had happened.

She calculated distances again and reached the worst possible conclusion. It wasn't going to be enough. Even with the Marik's panicked and so-far failed reactions to her disappearing from their sensors, there were too many of them for her to be able to bypass them all. In her lightly-armed 'Mech, fighting her way through wouldn't be possible, and she didn't have enough leeway in her power to use the jump jets as heavily as she needed to.

She hit the jump-jets again anyways, hoping for something to fall in her favor as another blast of heat spread through the cockpit and the 'Mech blasted into the air. The first rivers of sweat began to flow down her sides and through the heat-sinks in her hair as the cockpit soared past the relatively comfortable temperature it had reached. It was rather uncomfortable.

From past experience, Mariah knew that when she was beginning to get uncomfortable the 'Mech was reaching the point where the safeties would typically kick in and automatically shut it down. But turning them off spared her any such worries. For the moment, at least.

Of course, as she kept using the weapons things would get unbearably hot even for her. After _that_ as she kept using the weapons, things would start to _explode_.

She had some distance to go before she could explode. The meters disappeared surprisingly fast while she was in the air. Hopefully it would be enough.

At the very least, she knew it was distracting at least. The continued blasts of energy weapons at her told her she was the main focus for many of the Marik pilots. Though they seemed to have quit using as much regular ordinance against her. Probably frustrated at wasting ammo for no benefit.

At the apex of her jump, Mariah twisted her targeting reticule so it sat above a small cluster of the Free Worlders who had concentrated themselves too closely together and stabbed the firing button. Trying to keep it on the right location would have been nearly impossible even for her. Instead, she simply held the button down.

An uninterrupted stream of ruby-red concentrated light flowed from the sides of her _Stinger_ downwards. As she dropped the beam fell with her and intersected the trio that had grouped together. The shots didn't seem to do anything more than melt armor off of them, but it sent them scattering apart rather than trying to fire at her again. Mariah counted that as a success since it cleared the way for her to land without interference from them.

 _Revised estimate. Two minutes twenty-seven seconds to Tertiary Network dormancy._

This time she had to put a lot more of her attention into successfully landing. The engine was considerably less pleased to funnel its energy into jump-jets than it had been at the beginning of her rush forward. The jets sputtered worryingly as Mariah descended, kicking in for a few moments and then going silent or fluctuating their power wildly. She was forced to absorb most of the landing with the one good leg of her 'Mech, and could feel the wear and damage inflicted on the actuators. She was getting careless with the engine's safety mechanisms disengaged.

Absently, Mariah spared a glance for her heat indicator. The typical bar reading for the fusion engine had been replaced by a numerical cockpit reading outlined by the word 'critical' in red, a situation that only happened when the engine was pushing dangerously high levels of heat. Mariah had always assumed it was so whatever idiot was baking themselves alive could appreciate their own stupidity properly. If they were conscious.

Rivers of sweat pouring down her body and hair letting out a small halo of steam with every breath she took, Mariah knew the cockpit was hot but she could have sworn the cockpit didn't feel like 80'! She had been wondering why Grayson hadn't said anything more. More likely than not her communications system had overheated and slagged itself. The longer-ranged communications equipment was usually some of the most fragile pieces of equipment on a scout 'Mech.

Limping the _Stinger_ on, Mariah had finally reached the Marik line. Another group of missiles flew past the cockpit lengthwise, so close she swore she might have been able to reach out and touch them. But humorously enough they ended up spending their energy against the side of a massive _Warhammer_ that was making its way towards her. Friendly fire didn't deter the massive enemy 'Mech. Apparently convinced of the uselessness of using ranged weapons against her, it was instead charging straight-in, the extended barrel of one of its PPCs swinging menacingly towards the torso of her 'Mech.

Mariah growled in frustration. If she was the pilot in the other machine, she would have just turned off the targeting computer and eyeballed shots until she scored a hit. It was much more elegant that way. But this kind of brute-force method would probably work as well. _Barbarians_.

With a minute adjustment to her arms—her 'Mech's arms—Mariah focused both medium lasers on the approaching target. Gritting her teeth against the coming wave of heat, she depressed the firing stud.

 _Revised estimate. One minute fifteen seconds to Tertiary Network dormancy._

It wasn't just hot, it was _boiling_ , and Mariah had to wheeze against the sudden burning pain all across her body. Two of the readout displays flickered off, gamely fought themselves back to life, and then surrendered to the insane operating temperature and exploded in a shower of sparks and electricity, sending glass into the side of her cooling vest.

Mariah herself closed her eyes so she wouldn't have to look through the steam that was now rising out of them. One of the heat-sinks below her had apparently taken the easy route out and killed itself rather than even try to deal with the bullshit she was putting it through. That had ruined the razor-thin margin of safety she had been dealing with.

The 'Mech was Not Happy and rapidly approaching the zone where it would explode to demonstrate how Not Happy it was.

The good news was that both of her lasers found their mark. Each one dug into the thinner armor just below the leftmost shoulder-pauldron of the _Warhammer_. Had the _Warhammer_ been hit in the location before by something much heavier, or had she focused both lasers on one point and then been able to ram her entire 'Mech into the same point, it might have had the desired effect and sheared the particle projection cannons off. But the front-line 'Mech was too heavily-armored for what little she had done to even cause it to falter.

Mariah tried to move out of the way, but the locked actuator on her 'Mech's leg interfered with the attempt. She wouldn't be able to move fast enough on the ground to get clear!

Growling, she tried to trigger the jump jets again when instincts told her to eject. But she couldn't. Ejecting would have been admitting defeat, and she still wasn't close enough to the thing to reach it on foot to try and…choke it or something.

 _Revised estimate. Thirty-two seconds to Tertiary Network dormancy._

Mariah was completely unsurprised when instead of lifting her into the air, the jump jets sputtered a few times and then went completely dead as they melted themselves shut. She'd run things too hot for too long, and even disabling safeties couldn't disable fundamental physical limitations.

The attempted jump finally pushed her engine past the breaking point of those limits.

— _Neural Network Secondary Systems connection lost—_

One instant she had power, the next every display in the cockpit that was still functioning died and her controls were entirely unresponsive. The cockpit descended into almost-total darkness, the only illumination offered by small strips of luminescent tape that had been strung along the corners.

Perhaps worse than the physical loss, was the mental one. Mariah's mind staggered with the sudden absence of sensory input from the _Stinger's_ computer-systems, its gyrostabilizer, and the countless sensors that spotted it. In a single instant she was no longer the brain at the center of a twenty-ton mass of myomer and metal, she was just the brain at the top of a thirty-four kilogram mass of myomer and blood that was surrounded by twenty-tons of salvage who's heart was slowly consuming itself.

Her hand absently tugged on the ejection lever. But with all the power relays to the complicated system long-since burned out, it would have been a futile gesture even if she'd had power.

She pulled the lever again, more deliberately this time. When it again did nothing, she jerked it out of place with all her strength. Not even ripping the lever out of its track could make it do anything, though.

 **"Why do you humans insist on dragging these things out? Always with your fighting and interminable struggle against the inevitable? Why do you not just give up? Now, child, despair at your inability to save anything! You are defeated! RECOGNIZE IT!"**

The voice was booming and insistent, clawing at reality with every syllable. But at the same time it was muffled, as if it were being growled by someone at the depths of an ocean. The thing which cloaked itself in the skin of a ComStar Precentor had to be expending a lot of energy to have her mentally hear its words, and that willingness to so openly violate the Laws of the Universe sent a toe-curling chill down her spine. She tried to ignore it as much as she could. Such was the only way of dealing with the Dark Silence when it did something as unnatural as _speak_.

Then the _Warhammer's_ PPC slammed into her 'Mech's chest, and it was much easier not to pay attention to anything. Ripping aside already-damaged chunks of armor, the barrel stabbed through the underframe of her machine. It scored through tightly-wound cords of myomer muscle and electrical wiring, and pushed through the thin layer of metal that separated the cockpit from the rest of the inner workings.

Mariah only had enough time to read 'Rand 1200' emblazoned in decorative script on the side of the particle projection cannon's outer casing before it began to glow and hum with the telltale buildup of protons within the mangled field inhibitor.

She had honestly expected to be skewered by the cannon. Blowing her up alongside of it just seemed like a needless waste of a perfectly good PPC, particularly since the fusion engine going critical in a few seconds would have done almost the same thing as a PPC shot at point-blank range. Apparently she had really, really angered the pilot of the Free World's 'Mech. Either that or the Dark Silence was extraordinarily petty and exercising its influence.

 **"Die, stubborn human! Die, dIe, diE,** ** _DIE_** **!"**

The Dark Silence was extraordinarily petty. Who would have thought?  
 _  
Revised estimate. Thirteen seconds to Tertiary Network dormancy._

So much for keeping the Dark ignorant, then. She'd just have to hope She didn't destroy the planet out of spite for being called when it wasn't her time.

The Stackpole-120 engine at the heart of Mariah's _Stinger_ began to shoot superheated gusts of aerated plasma in every direction as one portion of the containment wall was finally breached. An uncountable instant later, the entire sphere shattered and the miniature sun at the heart of the 'Mech began to rabidly expand outwards, consuming metal and myomer both in its mad desire for release.

The PPC's field inhibitor failed to contain the nascent charge building within, starting a feedback loop in the ionization mechanisms of the weapon. Three microseconds after failing, almost at the same instant as the engine's containment failed, a blue-tinged explosion began to expand outwards from the weapon.

In-between the two competing explosions, the woman known to Grayson Carlyle and the Gray Death Legion as Major Mariah Hawkins, of the Star League Defense Force Navy, stretched one arm out above her. The explosions washed over and under her, boiling and twisting at her sides, futilely spending their energy against a small violet sphere of inviolable space that had manifested around her.

Her words were completely lost in the wave of destruction, but they didn't need to be heard to be effective. They, in fact, did not need to be spoken at all by her. But she spoke them anyways, in loving memory of the Others who _had_ needed them.

"Saturn Planet Power, make up!"

 **"WHAT!?"**

The sound of pure horror in the Dark Silence's unnatural voice was an unexpected bonus to physically stating the words.


	4. Chapter 4 - She Narrates in Proper Nouns

**Vermilion Pass  
Nagayan Mountain Range, Helm, Free Worlds League  
17 June 3028**

Staring down on Helm and the Sentient Things that occupied it, She absently tightened Her grip on the Glaive. The Things' fabricated carapaces were squared off against one another below, a badly damaged one the Vessel insisted was called a _Warhammer_ recoiling back from where She floated, most of the armor on its chest melting off from the enormous heat of the explosion.

Had She been summoned for a single Sentient Thing? That was needless and wasteful in the extreme. Besides, it was not yet that one's Time. So She had been summoned for something else.

But no matter where She looked, the story was the same. It was too soon for the planet and too soon for the Sentient Things. Far too soon, in some of their cases.

She tried looking towards the system's star, seeking a potential answer there. But that possibility was dashed quite quickly. It was also too early for the star. It had at least a billion more cycles before it changed in a suitable enough manner that She need bother do anything with it.

She could always expand the planet's sun early, but interfering with the appropriate Times of major celestial objects made correspondingly major problems for the one who watched time and space. She had no desire to make that job any harder than it already was. Reconciling such massive disruptions as the absence of entire planets or suns in space-time was more trouble than it was worth. The one who watched time and space would get mad at Her.

The one who watched time and space could be very frightening when angry.

So. Alternatives?

Bringing ruin to the weak, artificially-produced suns the Sentient Things had assembled around Her within their fabricated carapaces would not cause any disruptions of note. They were mechanical constructs of little major importance in the grand scheme of things. She was always disappointed at the way the Sentient Things bottled the beauty of fundamental forces up to try and make them endure longer than proper, anyways. Bringing them to their appropriate end was not very satisfying, but it would sate the need to do something for the moment.

The Vessel said something, drawing Her attention to a lesser one that had wormed its way into one of the Sentient Things. It wasn't proper, but neither was it forbidden.

That had been what She was called for? How trite.

She granted the lesser one a glare. It was pushing outwards at the minds of the Sentient Things around it, trying to push them back into conflict with one another rather than focusing on Her. Unlike Her, it was not powerful or disciplined enough to accomplish the task. But the very task was something it should not have been attempting. It was too easy to drive the Sentient Things into madness through such direct influence. Even Her own presence was not safe for their fragile minds.

That just would not do at all. She would have to deal with him.

The Vessel should have dealt with such an interloper already, really. She had more important concerns. But the Vessel, much like this lesser one, was rather useless and incompetent at anything beyond Its own limited scope of knowledge. It knew how to interact with the Sentient Things and call upon Her, but little else. The most It could do was the simple trickery that hid portions of reality from one another and occasionally reversing the impact of that reality. Hardly even worth mentioning.

It still did better than previous Vessels, however. Those tended to react poorly psychologically. This Vessel's mind was not quite as fragile.

The other Darkness spoke through its vessel, screaming words out at a volume that must be damaging to its vessel's biological parts. The screams were audible even in the physical realm the Sentient Things occupied, though still warped and twisted in their sound thanks to the Dark that birthed them.

 **"No. You should not be here! You should not be preventing this! You do not understand! Those Things have what We want—are trying to spread it. They cannot understand the true import of what they hold and are trying to merely prolong their miserable existence with it! It is imperative that We destroy that library! It is Our duty to destroy it!"**

A lesser one which spoke to Her? Insulting.

A lesser one which sought to tell Her of duty? Annoying.

Why did the lesser ones always seem to enjoy _speaking_ so much? Offering so many _words_ when none were actually needed. Arguing with Her as if they were one of the Sentient Things. It was as if they needed to convince _themselves_ of their actions. As if they thought they could convince Her!

She quieted the whispering part of her that agreed with the other Darkness' sentiments.

But one could not fault thoughtless entropy for being foolish. It might even be tempting were She incapable of remembering the appropriate practice of her powers.

"Tiantan?" She said, careful to pronounce the word just as the Vessel insist She pronounce it. The Vessel was begging Her to _speak_ with the lesser one rather than merely settle the issue immediately. It pleaded with her to use the name—apparently one of the Sentient Things concentrated colonies that had been destroyed recently and had somehow lead to the current conflict between the Sentient Things—against the lesser one. The Vessel seemed to consider it valuable that words be exchanged for the benefit of the other Sentient Things. Though why, She could not begin to fathom. They would not be capable of understanding!

One of the other robed Sentient Things near the one the lesser one had made common cause with drew back in horror. Horror She was well-acquainted with. Though it was interesting to see it focused on the lesser one instead of Her. Apparently 'Tiantan' was a focus of anger and disgust for them even beyond Herself. She could understand that sentiment, if not the relative scale.

It was quite annoying when Things were rendered lifeless before their Times.

"Precentor you were on Tiantan—" the robed one began, only to be silenced by a cuff on the side of the head by the other Darkness' vessel. The move ripped the Being's head off entirely, and the other occupants fled.

It had not yet been that Sentient Thing's Time. The lesser one had been involved with the deaths on the concentrated colony of Sentient Things.

The lesser one had insulted Her. It had annoyed Her. Usurping Her would not be tolerated.

 **"Be quiet! What does it matter? A handful of the worthless 'lives' of these parasitic beings? There are so many of them they were expendable. They are** ** _all_** **expendable!"** The fear that had tinged the voice of the lesser one was replaced by something else that was much less properly respectful.

Her Vessel seemed to consider the outburst enough. Which was good, because She was unwilling to put up with any further delays for more pointless, extended speechmaking as She already had. She was not here to make grandiose statements from on-high. That was for the lesser ones to partake in.

She ended Things.

A shadowy black presence extended itself out from the robed one, dark and twisted coils extending from the other vessel's body until they had almost obscured the entire vehicle they originated from. After a moment's pause, the shadow curled its way outward to bury itself in the nearest armored carapace. As if _that_ might protect it from Her.

Why were the lesser ones always so foolish and impudent? Always interfering in reality where they should not. Always expanding themselves madly rather than forging a stable connection to their Vessel. Always disobeying Her.

The last one was the worst.

She weaved Herself past the fabricated carapaces that towered around Her, approaching the multi-ton amalgamation of armor and weaponry that the lesser one had taken possession of. She leveled the Glaive at its torso, faintly amused by the way the Dark that surrounded the machine drew back from the purely physical threat. It was _pathetic_ for a creature of the Dark to be afraid. What was the worst that could be done? A temporary return to nonexistence?

The armored carapace turned towards Her, its armor seeming to ooze out the dark shadows that belied who its true controller was. On such a massive machine, the corruption would be visible even to the Sentient Beings limited senses. How gauche. One should at least have the decency to limit themselves _a little_. That was what made Things interesting. They, at least, tended to restrict themselves by some kind of system.

Lesser ones never did.

A small hatch slid open on the armored carapace's middle region, revealing a staggered pattern of holes in the armor. Apparently, it was a conscious decision by its creators as the machine released a small cloud of cylindrical flying tubes of explosive pushed by burning propellant from the various holes.

She wasted a moment trying to get the Vessel to tell Her the appropriate word for the things. She knew there was one. But it had been a long time since She had last required its use. The Vessel refused to answer, though. Apparently, it was an 'unnecessary distraction'. The Vessel insisted She pay attention to the items.

Sentient Things could be so _rude_. _She_ never refused to answer when the _Vessel_ called upon _Her_! It wasn't _fair_ that _Her_ questions never got answered!

Oh! 'Missiles', was it? That was a much easier descriptor.

She didn't bother dodging the flurry of explosions the missiles produced around Her. Such minor exothermic reactions were of little concern, reduced to nonexistence before they even touched Her Vessel's outer covering. She pushed through them with little regard. The head of the Glaive before Her to prevent anything more potent the lesser one might decide to attempt.

Rather unhappily, one of the exothermic bursts was augmented by the lesser one. The outer covering of the Vessel's arm bubbled and oozed in sympathetic reaction as She passed too close to it, and the covering quickly dropped away entirely. As if drawn to the exposed tissue, coiled worms of black shadow reached out and wrapped themselves around the arm.

Perhaps the Vessel had not been entirely childish in telling Her to focus on the Sentient Things weapons. Perhaps the Vessel had even been correct. Perhaps She owed the Vessel an…admission of partial guilt.

Perhaps.

She brought the damaged arm off the Glaive and gave it a shake. The tendril of Darkness that was coiling around the uncovered section could not be shaken off so easily, but its forced interaction with the Sentient Things reality meant it suffered from the same boring physics of that reality. It moved in-time with the shaking, and She was able to curl the Vessel's hand around a small section when it whipped upwards.

 _Out._

The coil of darkness faded from existence, leaving only the exposed poly-acetylene tubes and titanium-steel reinforced underparts of the Vessel's arm in its place. But that had only been a small part of the Lesser One. A part that had not even achieved the limited self-awareness of its creator.

Tightening Her hands on the Glaive, She refocused on the machine that had been possessed. In the next moment, She slammed into its outer shell, thrusting the weapon forwards as She did.

The carapace of titanium and steel peeled open in front of the Glaive, alloyed segments of armor that could withstand some of the most powerful battlefield weapons the Sentient Things fielded utterly incapable of even slowing it down. She continued driving the weapon deeper inside the machine, burying one of the Vessel's arms up to the elbow so She could push the weapon in the final short distance needed. With that final push, She broke through the containment vessel of the machine's inner sun and connected the blade of the polearm with the reaction within.

 _Stop._

It did, of course.

* * *

 **[Location unknown]**

 **June 17, 3028**

Time and Space were funny things. More easily passed through than over, they tended to remain constant in their effects, if not their impacts. Things had become more complicated when humanity developed the Kearny-Fuchida drive, but the essentials remained unchanged.

Space kept its enormous distances.

Time went by.

She waited.

It was just that time went by so _slowly._ Especially for those, like her, who had to wait.

What classical composer had that been? Fitzgerald? Turner? Madonna? She couldn't remember…

Absently fanning herself with one hand, the woman absently stared at the vid-player she'd set up and threw the question aside before it began to really bother her. The Immortal Warrior was about to bring down a Phoenix Hawk Land-Air 'Mech using nothing but an outdated hovertank and his _delicious_ oiled pecs, and she didn't want anything to distract her from those beauties.

It was one of the more ridiculous portions of part three to the series. But the actor was a total hunk. She could excuse a lot of sins for that.

There was a thunderclap, either in her head or a natural byproduct of the dimension she was in she didn't know. All she knew was that it demanded her attention. She jerked upright, listening to the Silence that echoed through her guard station for a very long moment, relief mixing with aggravation in proportions even she couldn't properly estimate.

That Silence was supposed to have happened much sooner. Had been required to happen much sooner, in fact. Almost three hundred rotations of Terra about the sun sooner. Because it hadn't the Star League hadn't died as it was supposed to, and instead descended into a state of perpetual civil war. It would be a mess correcting an error of that magnitude.

A very small grin touched her lips. That correction would require her presence and participation. Which meant leaving the nearly perpetual boredom of her post.

The grin wavered slightly. It also meant leaving behind the chance to look back on Thomas anytime she liked.

She had a good memory, though.

"Well. It is about time, Saturn. I thought you'd never get around to it. Maybe now I can actually get out of here for a change."

* * *

Again, aGain, agAin, agaIn, agaiN! **AG** AI **N**! The **plan** et this time! This **sol** ar sys **tem** after that! K **eep** **g** oing! **KEEP** **goi** ng! **KEEP GOING**!

She shook aside the screaming temptation within and withdrew the Glaive as the armored carapace She was on began to topple backwards towards the ground. The Darkness from the lesser one had abandoned the husk the instant it lost its power, recoiling away from Her attack in furious effort to save itself. It had only had one place to go. Back into its original vessel.

Such self-preservation was rather unseemly for one such as it. She found it insulting when they didn't accept the same fates they brought Sentient Beings. It was…hypocritical. One of the Beings' concepts that was very useful in contexts like this.

Of course, considering Her own Vessel's refusal to accept the fate of Sentient Beings—even if forced into such position—the criticism might also be hypocritical coming from Her. But She could not be hypocritical even if She was.

She turned towards the robed vessel, and it immediately began to slither its way backwards. Speaking through its vessel was one thing, but the Darkness and its vessel were very closely connected if it could control even physical movements. It was unlikely separating the two would let the Sentient Being who might be within continue living.

Not that She could separate the two anyways. She would settle for ruining them both.

The lesser one spoke more as She approached its vessel. Vacillating between promises of fealty and threats of destruction. Offering cooperation in one breath and damnation in the next. It was like listening to one of the Sentient Beings young—Very annoying.

Unlike with the annoyance of Sentient Beings young, this one was best dealt with by sending it into the nonexistence it had sprung from.

She used one of Her Vessel's arms to physically lift the other. The occasional desperate string of Darkness tried to push it away away or stab at the exposed portions of Her Vessel's body, but there was virtually no strength behind the movements. The lesser one was flailing pointlessly and without any real goal, both with its vessel as well as its incorporeal self.

It couldn't even die with dignity! At least the Sentient Things were more interesting in their final moments. The son of Gray that the Vessel had spoken with was downright _fascinating_ in what it considered its final moments. Those Sentient Things that fashioned themselves or their servants as embodying death always were, it seemed.

She glared through Her Vessel's eyes at the lesser one. It squirmed and slithered, bulging and inflating the body as it moved about trying to avoid Her gaze. Even to Her it was disgusting. A clear violation of What Should Be.

 _You do not belong here, invader. Get. Out._

Manipulating the Glaive with one hand was slightly awkward for Her Vessel, but it accomplished the task required of it with suitable-enough speed. She severed the connection between the opposing vessel and the dark. As well as that between the vessel and its nervous system. The resulting overflow speckled Her Vessel's face, but such was unavoidable.

She dropped the unattached piece of the body to the ground. Not cleansed or healed, certainly. But annihilation was the only option She had in its case.

Barely worth Her awakening. The only event that made it bearable was the end of the Thing-made sun that had been inside the armored carapace.

The Vessel really needed to be taught not to summon Her for such trivial pursuits.

* * *

Grayson Carlyle was relatively young by the standards of most Mechwarriors. He liked to think he made up for it in experience. Few people his age could boast of being involved in the number of engagements he had, and even fewer had benefited from the training he'd had as a child. He had experienced combat and knew what kind of oddities the madcap realm of the battlefield could produce.

Fusion engines going critical, for instance? He'd seen it a couple of times. The odds against it were truly ridiculous, but the combination of heat build-up, ballistic impacts, high-energy laser weapons and good old operator error could produce the necessary conditions for even the 'safe' reactors at the heart of 'Mechs to explode in truly spectacular ways on rare occasion.

Much more common was seeing PPCs overload. The energy weapons were powerful, but excessively finicky and prone to malfunction even on their best days. Those on his _Marauder_ were a constant struggle to keep in service without risking a failed inhibitor. Using them at point-blank range as the enemy 'Mech had was practically guaranteed to result in an explosion.

Grayson had even seen suicidal charges like the one Mariah had embarked on before. He'd engaged in one of them at the start of his career armed with nothing but a missile launcher, and that had ended up netting him Lori and the _Locust_ she'd been piloting at the time. Hell, he'd been in the process of engaging in one when Mariah had one-upped him. So it wasn't like he could condemn or be aggravated about that at all.

He had _even_ heard the barroom rumors of the 'Phantom 'Mech'. Some of the stories specified Morgan Kell and Yorinaga Kurita, but all of them shared the common elements. 'Mechs that disappeared from every sensor focused on them.'Mech's fighting on even after their pilot was dead. 'Mechs that didn't overheat or fired more rounds of ammunition than they could carry. The variations were endless. Grayson had always dismissed the stories as mere hearsay and exaggeration. Mechwarriors were a notoriously superstitious lot. But he was less certain of that judgement now.

The point was that even something as unlikely or ridiculous as all of that was at least familiar to him. Something he could grasp. Engines going critical? Ridiculous, but something he could grasp. A 'Mech somehow 'disappearing'? Ridiculous, but something he could grasp. Finding a living Star League officer locked inside of a Castle Brian? Ridiculous. But something he could grasp. All of them were things that at least had the ghost of plausible explanation among them.

The woman floating in the middle of the explosion that had moments before been Mariah's _Stinger_? _That was new_. Worse than being new, it was _utterly unexplainable_. She not only shouldn't be there. She _couldn't_. Surrounded by a violet-tinged bubble, she didn't seem to be affected by the superheated air of the exploding 'Mech at all.

Perhaps even weirder than her mere presence, however, was her appearance. She was dressed like the Draconis Combine's idea of a slutty schoolgirl. Beyond that, she had an honest-to-God _spear_ at her side. Not even the most hardline of the Combine's Mustered Soldiery—the samurai-worshipping nuts who wore swords in the cockpit!—would stoop to carrying a pointy stick. They'd think it was 'beneath their dignity'.

The sheer novelty of the sight forced Grayson to stop piloting his 'Mech and just stare at the floating woman. The hesitation might have left him painfully open to attack, but thankfully he didn't seem to be the only one pushed into inaction by her appearance. Even the Free Worlders stopped in their tracks and ceased combatting his men. Air that had roared with autocannon-fire and the whisper-snap of lasers burning through went abruptly silent as both sides turned their attention on the miraculously living, floating woman.

Grayson couldn't help but wonder if part of it wasn't the ridiculous skirt attracting their attention more than anything else. Mechwarriors were superstitious, but they were also perpetual horndogs, and even the female pilots had to be wondering just what the hell a Combine fuku-wearing girl was doing appearing in the righteous, Marik-supporting skies of Helm.

Grayson came to the conclusion that he was hallucinating. That was the only explanation that made sense. Because what he was seeing simply made no sense.

The writhing, arm-like shadows that had burst out from behind the enemy lines and wrapped themselves around the _Awesome_ providing fire-support had to have been the product of some nightmarish portion of his mind. Some primal fear that was cropping up only now when he was so close to dying.

The words that had been spoken also had to be inventions of his mind. He wouldn't be able to hear someone speaking inside the 'Mech unless they were on his comm frequency, and nobody could possibly speak in such a grating, twisting, _unnatural_ voice.

On top of it all, the floating woman had charged at the _Awesome_ , the spear in her hands extended out before her. A person flying without any visible jump gear was silly enough. A flying person attacking a BattleMech with a melee weapon? His mind wouldn't show something that silly to him unless he was dying.

Grayson had been raised on a very simple, and easily observable, fact of life on the battlefield. The 'Mech was the undisputed master of any engagement. Tanks might, in sufficient number and in prepared defenses, hold ground. Aerial forces were valuable for support and interdiction, but lacked the staying power to be truly viable as a tool of unrestricted offense or reliable defense. Infantry were necessary to secure logistical routes and provide various other support roles, but too vulnerable to accomplish much themselves. The 'Mech was the way that ground was taken and enemy forces defeated.

The only thing that could defeat a 'Mech in straight combat was another, more heavily-armed or better-piloted 'Mech. That might as well have been something as true as two plus two equaling four.

Women in skirts wielding pointy sticks—even _flying_ women in skirts wielding pointy sticks—were not BattleMechs. They were, in fact, 'crunchies'. Things that a 'Mech might accidentally step-on in the process of fighting targets that were _actually_ a threat. They were utterly and completely incapable of stopping a 'Mech.

The _Awesome,_ no longer dripping with the black, oily substance that had wept from every joint of the thing a few moments earlier, was lying on its back, an almost scalpel-like hole in its torso armor and its engine shut-down entirely.

It was a little emasculating, really. _He'd_ never defeated a 'Mech in a few seconds. He'd certainly never done so with a pointy stick. Or in a skirt, for that matter. Though that might just be confusing the issue.

He'd also never decapitated someone.

Grayson zoomed in on the spectacle, partly out of morbid fascination with the scythe-like spear but mostly because something about the woman struck him as…familiar.

Now that he looked closely, the woman wielding the spear looked a lot like Mariah.

She had popped up in about the same place that Mariah would have died as well.

She wasn't of course. That was impossible. But she certainly looked like her.

Grayson bit his lip, feeling as if he was missing something. As if something was teasing at the edge of his mind just out of his grasp.

"Boss! Boss! They're retreating! We won!"

He jerked with the exclamation, trying to force his attention back onto the enemy 'Mechs. Sure enough, they were all moving backwards with the stuttering, mechanical precision the machines always had when they backtracked. They hadn't turned around to offer shots at the vulnerable rear armor of their machines, but that seemed to be more as a result of them keeping their weapons trained on the solitary woman on the ground. Not on him or his men, but on the single woman in a skirt at the center of their line.

Grayson was a little insulted by that, but simultaneously had a moment of absolute understanding and sympathy for the Marik commander. His own weapons were pointed at the same place, after all. It still didn't make him feel any better.

How much good would they do if the woman decided to come after him? They hadn't helped the _Awesome_ at all.

The woman turned her head as if the thought had summoned her attention, and Grayson swallowed heavily as her eyes locked with his through the monitors in his cockpit. She twisted around to completely face him, the jerking motions of her movements making it look much more unnatural than it should. As if the simple change of position was something she was unfamiliar with. As if moving around on the _ground_ itself rather than floating about was something she was unfamiliar with.

She never blinked. Grayson watched her for a full thirty seconds, avoiding looking into those eyes as he did, and not once did she blink. Just stared with a blank expression that seemed to say more than any sneer Grayson had ever gotten in his life.

As she began to jerkily move towards him, he realized she was looking down on him. She had the same look on her face that a Free Worlds League nobleman would have when he showed up to a fancy dinner-party in his utility jumpsuit. He was in a seventy-five ton weapon of destruction that towered over her, and she was looking down on him like he'd just mispronounced _hors d'oeuvres_. Maybe it was justified since she'd just taken down a heavier opponent with nothing but her magic 'Mech-poking stick…

It had to be some kind of close-range disruption weapon that forced a 'Mech to shut-down when it was discharged. It was rather useless itself, since any infantryman armed with such a thing would be rather unlikely to live to get into close enough contact with a 'Mech to actually use it. But combined with the unseen jump pack the woman obviously had for quickly flying around the battlefield? Then it could work.

The explanation sounded forced and stupid even in Grayson's mind. Not least because of how the woman was dressed. There was quite simply nowhere for her to strap a jump pack that wouldn't be visible. The frilly microskirt and leotard she wore weren't exactly conducive to concealing…anything.

Dammit, he wasn't supposed to feel like a dirty old man when he was performing a threat assessment!

"Gray? That woman is getting awfully close. What do we want to do?" Lori asked. The particular emphasis she placed on the last word told him she had a solid idea what she wanted to do about it. Even without seeing inside her cockpit he could picture the woman tightening her fingers on the firing-studs of her 'Mech's weapons.

Somehow, Grayson didn't think shooting at the woman was going to help matters. It certainly hadn't worked out for the Free Worlders.

Maybe she was some kind of Star League illusion? A defense program for the Castle Brian that used a holographic projection as an intimidation tactic? Even the most battle-hardened of Mechwarriors would probably rethink their course of action if a woman in a skirt destroyed one of their number with a spear and suffered little notable damage in return.

That explanation was also forced and stupid, but Grayson didn't have any other real alternatives. Mariah might have been able to tell him what the hell was going on, but she'd gone and gotten herself killed.

Again, that tickling feeling he was missing something. But he was frustratingly unable to track down _what._

"Pull back for now. If nothing else she's bought us some time." Grayson said into the comm as he settled the 'Mech into a stationary position and began to remove the neurohelmet from his head.

He took a moment to sigh and roll his shoulders as the heavy piece of equipment came off, and ran one hand through hair that was caked with dried sweat. The first chance he got, he was cannibalizing one of the helmets from the Star League cache. They were much more comfortable.

Grayson snorted slightly. That was still assuming he lived. He really had to quit doing that. Eventually, the miraculous breaks that had brought him this far would stop coming.

Cycling the reactor to standby and disengaging the cockpit seals, Grayson leaned forwards and gave an experimental push. The hatch was supposed to open entirely on its own with just a modicum of effort, but it didn't even budge. One of the hydraulic struts had probably been tweaked during the battle. Likely from the laser that had scored across his right side. It had been close enough to his cockpit for him to feel the heat transfer through the metal, it wouldn't surprise him if it had gotten hot enough to distort the 'Mech's profile enough to cause difficulties in opening the hatch.

Sliding down in his seat and cocking one leg up, Grayson slammed his heel onto the upper portion of the cockpit. As if it had been waiting for just such a thing—or, more likely, as if the impact had encouraged the stubborn strut to actually do its job—the hatch slowly popped out of its fasteners and slid forward on the nose-cone of the _Marauder_ with a grinding, crackling stutter that spoke of warped metal and distorted tracks.

The techs were going to be mad at him. Again. Maybe they'd be mollified because of all the new toys he'd found for them? He could certainly hope.

"Gray? Gray! _Grayson Carlyle_ , what the hell do you think you're doing?"

He could hear the transmission from the neurohelmet even with it set on the storage plate behind the piloting couch. Lori was using _that_ tone of voice again. The one that reminded him of his father when he'd done something incredibly stupid. It was that subtly way she emphasized his name and ticked her voice up a notch.

Standing up and basking in the slight breeze coming over the top of the 'Mech, Grayson turned towards Lori's _Shadow Hawk_ and offered a jaunty wave in answer of her question. Shoving the coiled emergency-ladder over the side of the 'Mech, he ignored the stream of invective coming from his neurohelmet as best he could.

He was being stupid. But after spending the last—God, had it only been fifteen minutes?—absolutely certain he was going to die, he figured he was entitled to a little stupidity. What was the worst that happened? He died being decapitated by some spear-wielding nutjob in a miniskirt? There were worse ways of going out, and that way at least didn't risk anyone else following him into the afterlife. Besides, he was curious. It only seemed proper to meet the target of his curiosity on equal ground.

Grayson crawled over the side of the 'Mech and began to pick his way down the thin strands of the rope-ladder. He tried not to think about the fact that 'equal ground' probably didn't exist with someone who could bring down a 'Mech by hand.

He failed. The clammy sweat on his fingertips from that failure made getting down the ladder even more difficult than it should have been.

When he reached the bottom, he undid the cooling vest wrapped around his chest and left it hanging on the ladder. The light breeze that had been hinted at when he was standing in the cockpit now pressed against his entire body, occasionally catching a strand of sweat-matted hair or playing at the slightly-loose collar of his undershirt. Barring a shower, it was undoubtedly the most sublime feeling he could have asked for.

If he was going to get decapitated by some nut carrying around a 'Mech-destroying spear, at least he'd be more comfortable as it happened.

Grayson turned.

She was _right there_ behind him. Flat, unblinking eyes looking up at him as if he were a peculiar bug of some kind. She was about the same height as Mariah had been. Same shoulder-length black hair too. The stare was definitely different though.

Having stared death itself in the eye on a number of previous occasions, Grayson limited his reaction to a single whole-body spasm of surprise and fear that almost sent him tumbling backwards onto his ass. The ladder, thankfully, broke his fall when he wrapped an arm through one of its loops. Though that left him stumbling about like a half-drunken idiot trying to keep his feet underneath him and his shoulder from getting dislocated.

 _Smooth._

As he recovered his senses, the first thing he noticed was how much the woman looked like Mariah in even smaller features. Same cheekbones, and the same dark-almost purple-blue eyes. Besides the goofy outfit, the spear, and the completely-exposed muscles on one of her arms, it could almost have been the dead Star League Major's twin.

It wasn't of course. Because it wasn't. But it could have been.

Grayson had to glance at the 'muscles' once again. Instead of the red, bloody masses he would have expected, they were bundles of green-tinged fibers that he'd seen countless times before under different circumstances. Replacing and splicing the bundles of myomer that provided a 'Mech with its strength was a basic maintenance procedure he'd been schooled in as a child. Though he'd heard of highly-developed hospitals like that attached to the New Avalon Institute of Science grafting the odd strand of myomer into people to serve as replacement muscles, he'd never seen an entire limb apparently made out of the stuff! The woman's right arm looked like one from a 'Mech that had lost all of its protective armor.

Following the arm up, Grayson had to face the fact that, while her spear was not _quite_ a spear, it was not any more technologically advanced than a spear. Instead of ending in a single point, her weapon dovetailed at the beginning of the blade into an upper and lower portion that he could only assume served some kind of purpose, but couldn't even begin to guess as to what that was. Regardless, the weapon looked just as obsolete up close as it had when he was further away. There were no power lines or other telltale indicators of it being anything more than a pair of sharp things mounted on the end of a pole. So much for his theory of her being a Star League defense mechanism wielding a high-tech wonderweapon from the past.

He took some comfort in the knowledge that his theory wasn't _entirely_ disproven, though. The woman was clearly, like Mariah, a denizen of the Star League. Either that or she had decided on very strange jewelry to complement her very strange outfit. As pinned atop the blood-red bow that adorned the top of her blouse was a decorative star with its upper and righter points extended further than the others. The Cameron Star. Symbol of the Star League's ruling family.

So he had a Star League woman dressed like a Draconis Combine schoolgirl with an arm that looked like it was state-of-the-art from some black Federated Suns R&D site. Standing less than a meter away from him on a Free Worlds League planet. Holding a 'Mech-killing melee weapon a Lyran would sell their soul for. Staring at his mercenary ass the same way the Chancellor of the Capellan Confederation probably stared at pictures of Hanse Davion.

It was frightening to a truly interstellar degree.

"Can I help you?" Gray offered dumbly, desperately trying to recover some amount of the initiative as he regained his balance. It certainly was not his best introduction, but there had been worse ones. Lori still didn't like talking about how they'd met. At least he wasn't threatening this woman with being cooked alive in the cockpit of a 'Mech.

Who said talking to women was hard? Because they were right.

Maybe he just wasn't meeting the right women?

Her eyes seemed to actually focus on him instead of just staring through him. He immediately wished they hadn't.

"This Vessel is damaged. It believes you trustworthy. You will assist it for Me." Even hesitating over every word as she was, Grayson could hear the importance she placed on the last one. He'd heard that kind of self-reverential tone only once before. It demanded immediate obedience and didn't leave any room for questions.

Grayson opened his mouth to ask a question.

"It will require the application of large quantities of stored positive and negative electromagnetic charges. As only available at your 'HPG' generators." The woman continued before he could speak, eyes going distant once again and staring through him without actually seeming to notice his presence.

She visibly shook after a long moment. "This Vessel assures Me you are able to provide such."

Grayson began to form the first word of his question.

In a whip-like movement he couldn't even begin to track, the weapon in her hands moved from nonthreateningly at her side to braced forward at him. The blade only a few centimeters from his neck.

The image of the ComStar acolyte being beheaded wormed its way into his head immediately. Deciding he didn't really need to ask his question, Grayson shut his mouth with a sharp _clack_.

"Should any harm come to the Vessel be assured that all life on this planet will cease." She continued, the blades of her spear creeping even closer to his neck.

Well that made him feel much better. No pressure at all. Why was it that every time he met new women, his life got more complicated or more dangerous?

"But who are—" Grayson finally began.

The Cameron Star on her chest glowed for a moment with a violet-white sheen that seemed to slowly radiate out from its center. When it reached the furthest point on the 'east' of the star, there was a flash of blinding light. Grayson shied away, automatically throwing one of his arms up to try and block some of the harsh glare.

When it faded, the question he'd been about to ask was answered. Unfortunately, Mariah's familiar form in front him, crumpled into a ball and with no sign of the spear or the strange clothing she had been in a moment earlier raised many, many more.


	5. Chapter 5 - Genies Lie and Deceive

Vermilion Plains

Helm, Free Worlds League

17 June 3028

Grayson grunted almost as loud as Hassan and Davis did as they all strained to lift the body between them. Hassan was lucky. He had positioned it so he only had to life the legs. Grayson and the burly Caledonian were stuck trying to haul up a torso that weighed, in his humble estimate, about as much as a small hovercraft. Which was perhaps a little ironic, since they were loading it into a small hovercraft.

"Now. Over." He growled between breaths as the body slowly rose. They all shuffled to the side and pushed, sending the body into the open-topped rear-seat of the small civilian hovercraft the Legion had snagged during its multi-day retreat. The cushion sagged onto the ground an extra centimeter or so as the weight settled into the vehicle, and he could have sworn the front-end had raised up as well.

The Gray Death Legion overcoat he'd wrapped over the body to hide the nakedness and, more-so, the green mass of exposed myomer that made up one of her—its?—hands slid halfway off, revealing the right side of the body. Grayson stiffened at the sight, head swimming with images of the same wounds shining with the crimson-red of human blood.

On a person, having the skin peeled off like that would have led to them slowly bleeding to death unless something could stem the loss. But it seemed to have no impact on Mariah. Still had a pulse the last he'd checked. The body wasn't bleeding at all. He wasn't certain whether that made him feel better or worse. A little bit of red blood might have almost been comforting to see from her. It would have made it more certain what she was at least. Or, at least, he thought it might have.

After a moment's hesitation, he stretched over the side of the hovercraft and pulled the coat back into place.

"Ye' certain you know what y'er doin', Boss?" Davis asked as Grayson pushed himself back off the vehicle. The big man was rolling one shoulder that he'd apparently strained picking up the… Star League woman-mech that had gone by 'Mariah'.

"No, I'm pretty much piloting by the seat of my pants on this one. But somebody has to see if our friendly dead Precentor left anything revealing behind. Besides, since we're still part of the life on this planet our friendly, living, breathing piece of Lostech in there threatened to destroy, I'd rather not take any chances." Grayson replied immediately, giving the man a jaunty smile he didn't really feel as he propped his ass up against the rear of the hovercraft.

McCall was always prone to worrying anyways, so it was best to let him know that he wasn't the only one who recognized a stupid idea when he saw it. It helped him feel less like the only sane man in Grayson's band of nutjobs. Even if, for all intents and purposes, he was. Which, considering how batshit the scot could be, really said bad things about the Legion.

Grayson's mind wandered back to the body in the rear-seat of the hovercraft, and he made a mental note that he needed to have a serious discussion about human resources with Lori. In particular, she needed to take over recruitment and public relations duties. Because he seemed to have some strange curse on his person that prevented him from encountering anyone normal.

Though, now that he thought of it, it had been Lori who had stumbled into Mariah, not him. Scratch her for that job.

McCall started to say something, but apparently thought better of it after giving the hovercraft a brief once-over. After an instant he shrugged, smiled, mouthed a well-wishing of some kind or another, and turned around to start back towards the dropship. It wasn't like him to let Grayson off the hook that easy, but he could appreciate small miracles when he received them.

Hassan didn't go as easily. Instead, he crossed his arms and gave a dark stare at the body in the rear of the hovercraft. Grayson couldn't tell what exactly the thoughts behind his dark-brown eyes were, but he knew enough about the man to guess they weren't all that friendly. Grayson had never—and would never—press about the former-assassin's past. It was one of those Drac honor things he didn't understand anyways.

Grayson shuddered slightly as the other man continued to scan over 'Mariah' and him. Hassan was another example of just how far normal was from the daily operations of the Gray Death Legion. Though at least his oddity was tempered by a no-nonsense attitude that had served Grayson well. But even years of friendship couldn't eliminate the odd rumbling in Grayson's stomach whenever the man was drawing on memories from his days before the Legion. It always turned him serious.

Well, more serious. Hassan was always serious.

"May I ask something personal?" Hassan finally asked, folding both arms over his chest.

Grayson nodded his assent, curiosity piqued. Hassan wasn't one to ask questions. Sweeping statements and those annoying, philosophical reflections in poem-form every single person from the Combine seemed to be in love with? Certainly. Questions? Only to clarify how to properly execute an order.

"Why take her with you at all?"

Grayson had to laugh slightly at that, because it was a very good question. His excuse to McCall was exactly that, and in his own head he could admit it. But he didn't have any alternative explanation. Answering Hassan with 'I have no idea, I'm flying by the seat of my pants on that one as well' didn't seem appropriate, though.

"Well, we got through the tunnels and found all that stuff mainly thanks to—" Grayson fluttered a hand in Mariah's direction instead of trying to puzzle out a pronoun. "But primarily I'm thinking of how useful those anti-Mech spears might be for our poor bloody infantry company. Talk about a force multiplier. If we can get some of those, we'll be able to charge out the nose for our services. I'm talking Kell Hounds and Wolf's Dragoons kind of prices."

Hassan seemed to consider that for a long time.

"You are a poor excuse for a mercenary, Kolarasi." He finally said.

In all the time he'd known Hassan, Grayson had never heard him use that particular stress of the word 'mercenary'. The one that was popular in the Combine where it served as a stand-in insult for 'dishonorable coward'. Grayson was about to take issue with the statement. But the other man moved on before he could.

"You should be very careful, though. She is djinniri."

That sentence took precedence over a minor insult. Because Hassan couldn't have said it. Because it was stupid. Silly. Childish. Hassan could not be serious. Grayson must have misheard.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"She is djinniri. Genie. They lie and deceive. It is a requirement of their nature. Be careful." Hassan repeated, as if it wasn't the silliest thing he'd ever said in his life.

"She's a genie?" Grayson said one more time, just to be certain he was hearing right. "Hassan, don't take this the wrong way, but did you ever get that knock to your head checked out?"

Hassan's glare answered that question solidly enough. "Have you got a better explanation? It is the only thing that makes sense with all the—" Hassan gestured with his hand over his body, then wrapped up the movement by stabbing it outwards, spear-like.

Grayson had to admit, to himself at least, that he did not have a better explanation. But there was no sense in admitting that to anyone. It was hard enough admitting it to himself. Giving voice to that fear would shatter the illusion of confidence that was letting him try this harebrained stunt. To admit he had nothing to go on except a vague obligation he'd stupidly made would send him running back to the dropships and abandoning Helm, Mariah Hawkins, and whatever treasures might still be hidden in the cache that his men hadn't had time to loot.

But he couldn't let himself do that. Because…Because he was a mercenary and he'd made a verbal contract with the woman—thing?—in the back of the hovercraft. Mercenaries kept contracts.

"Of course I have a better explanation. A couple, in fact. I'm just waiting for all the evidence before committing to any one of them." It was a true statement. Technically. 'Star League techno-magic bullshit' and its various iterations were a different explanation than 'genie', after all. Though looking back, 'genie' might not be inappropriate either. His people were alive and the Legion was inheriting a cache of Star League equipment. That was two wishes granted largely because of her—its?—intervention.

For his third wish, Grayson just wanted to know what the hell was going on. Why had a Precentor turned into some shadowy, black morass straight out of a kroner-store datapad novel? Had it only been the one Precentor involved in all this? Only him who had set up his unit to take the fall for the destruction of an entire city, or was there more to it?

Perhaps most importantly: Who—What?—actually was 'Mariah Hawkins'? And were verbal contracts void if they were made with Star League weapons that happened to resemble people?

Then again, breaking promises made to genies never went well in all the stories he'd ever heard. And he had promised her voyage offworld…

Grayson shook himself out of his mental reverie when Hassan extended a hand. Clasping the other man's wrist in the Azami fashion, Grayson couldn't bring himself to meet Hassan's eyes.

"Make sure McCall doesn't try anything stupid before I make it back."

"As you command."

Grayson shared a brief moment of quiet with the other man before they both turned, almost at the same time, back to their jobs. Grayson let one hand float along the edge of the hovercraft as he crossed around it, the heat of the paint almost uncomfortably warm in the midday sun. He was being an idiot. But he didn't see much choice.

When he looked into the vehicle itself to get in, he had to take a moment to try and come up with something suitable irate to say.

Lori didn't wait.

"We can argue and fight over this, up to and including fisticuffs if that's how you want it Grayson Death Carlyle. After which I will be coming along anyways but the trip will be much more awkward and you'll have to apologize for the things you said in the heat of the moment." Lori said, not even gracing him with a sideways glance from her position in the passenger seat.

"Or, you can get in, start the vehicle, and quit being a whiny, overprotective baby. Because I. Am. Coming." She continued, finally turning her head to look at him. There were a very few instances where Grayson had seen Lori with that look in her eyes.

Grayson got in, performed a quick double-check on the diagnostic system for the hovercraft's main engine, and then punched it to life. Perhaps one day, if he got enough firepower behind him and a high enough rank, maybe he'd actually get Lori to listen to him and do what he wanted.

But it was clearly not today. Maybe a title would help? Surely she'd listen to him if he was a baron or something?

The hovercraft glided into motion, shooting from a standstill to a comfortable hundred kilometers an hour in a few seconds. He'd have to slow down to preserve the somewhat-fragile skirt underneath soon enough once he got closer to the rocky, mountainous paths the Free Worlds League forces were still camped in. But for now the smooth grassland of the plateau made for easy traveling.

"So, besides annoying me, is there any particular reason you insist on coming with?" Grayson half-screamed. The wind that shot over the canopy of the hovercraft carried his words away almost instantly, but from the deepening frown on her face Lori must have heard him.

He had all but given up on getting an answer when she shifted position to look into the occupant of the back seat. She began to say something, but stopped with her mouth halfway open. Turning back to the front, she crossed her arms over her chest and became very interested in the dashboard. The blush that developed was adorable, if confusing.

"It's stupid."

Grayson tried not to laugh. He failed. "Hon, two hours ago I was certain you, me and everybody else were going to die. Then we got saved by a three-hundred year old woman in a leotard who killed a 'Mech with a spear and that Hassan—who I have previously considered a fountain of stable, rational thought—thinks is a magical genie. I'll take 'stupid' if it actually answers a question."

Lori snorted slightly, obviously tried to fight down the reaction, and then burst into honest giggles. It was the cutest damned thing Grayson had ever seen and he found himself thankful the hovercraft mostly steered itself over the terrain they were on. It was a shame she always fought down her laughter in public. It was one of the most beautiful things about her.

Though, he had to admit, this sounded a little more unhinged than any he'd ever heard before.

"Alright. Fine. Idiot." She muttered as the laughter subsided. She twisted around in her seat to once again look back on their unconscious passenger—cargo?—and shook her head.

"Mom and dad grew up on Sigurd." Lori paused, narrowed one eye to fight back a collection of moisture that grew there, "Their parents grew up on Sigurd. All the way back to when the planet was colonized. And mom and dad would always tell this story, a 'family legacy' they called it…You said she threatened to destroy the planet?"

Grayson started slightly at the sudden transition, "Yeah. 'All life shall cease' or something to that affect."

Lori nodded, and her voice took on the half-lilting tenor of someone reciting something they'd heard too many times. "In time will come the saturnine woman the League ordained to be in charge of terraforming. As the ships alit from Home, so too did she. And when our labors grow enough, Sigurd will be blessed by her…And the scythe she wields that can end this alien life and herald a life as humans were meant to live. Warm, on open ground, under the sun. We need just wait and work."

Grayson wasn't quite sure how to respond to that. The spear Mariah had been throwing around could, maybe, be called a 'scythe'. But that meant…He wasn't really sure what it meant, but it certainly didn't mean anything that actually helped explain things. Silence settled over the hovercraft, the only noise the whining drone of the hovercraft's engine as it pushed them forward.

"Lori. Don't tell me your siding with Hassan's 'she's magic' stuff? Please? I am not prepared to be the reasonable and down-to-earth one in this relationship."

Lori coughed lightly. "I said it was stupid. Besides, I don't actually believe it. Obviously it's a fairy tale. But…Maybe she inspired it or something? It makes me curious."

Grayson couldn't argue with that. If there was one thing Mariah had him, it was 'curious'. He just hoped that curiosity wasn't going to get him killed. She—it?—Was going to owe him if they lived and this worked.

What was he supposed to do once they reached the HPG?

The grassland slowly turned to the rock-covered brown of the mountain pass, and soon enough Grayson was passing by the point he and the others had made their stand earlier. The virtually-intact Awesome that Mariah had stabbed with the spear that morning still sat where it had slumped on the battlefield. He had to fight down a shudder as they passed in front of it, utterly and completely vulnerable to any of the weapons that were still operational on it.

Despite the rocky ground, Grayson pushed the hovercraft to a higher speed.

The Free Worlds League force had made camp much further away than he would have thought. They had abandoned three of the tight passes that Grayson and the rest of the Legion had fought them from the preceding evening, apparently only stopping their rout when they'd reconnected with their infantry and ground support elements. More surprisingly, they'd also started the process of making fortifications. Grayson might have pleased, and perhaps even amused, if he didn't completely understand the sentiment.

To his immense relief, the white flag they hung out served its purpose in gaining them a peaceful audience with the FWL commander. At least initially.

"Major! Arrest this man immediately! This is Grayson Carlyle himself! The man who ordered the destruction of Tiantan!"

The shriek originated from a rather portly man in a medal-bedecked uniform who stood just outside a small knot of Free Worlds League officers. From prior experience, Grayson could peg the man as 'Lord Garth' of Irian. The incompetent who had largely been responsible for the Gray Death Legion surviving to enter the Star League cache.

The Major who the League nobleman was screaming to was leaning over a map surrounded by other, lower-ranking officers. He straightened, and Grayson's eyes were met by a big man, at least 200 centimeters tall and seemingly just as wide. Grayson had to wonder how he even fit inside anything lighter than an Assault 'Mech, and reached the uncomfortable conclusion he probably didn't. Unlike Garth, his uniform was absent of any ornaments or medals. It, in fact, bore distinctive crease-marks from where it had been unfolded and still hadn't contoured to his body.

Grayson hoped that meant something that at least resembled a fair hearing from a fellow warrior, but he wasn't about to bet on it. Just as possible it was a newly-promoted idiot who'd had a uniform flown out to him. Some Free Worlders took cues from the Lyrans in how much to value being 'dressed for success'.

"Is it?" The gigantic man said, bringing one hand to his chin and tilting his head slightly. There was undisguised contempt in his eyes as he locked gazes with the nobleman, and Grayson felt a splurge of hope. Infighting among the enemy at this stage could only be good for him. Well. So long as the right side was superior at the moment.

From the way the guardsman who flanked the hovercraft exchanged looks and brought their hands onto their rifles, the Major might be in command at the moment, but it wasn't a firm command. In the Free Worlds League, the chain of command could be somewhat…Fluid.

"Of course it is! And he must be executed immediately! You four! Get him out of that vehicle!"

That brought the guards to a much firmer attention, and they actively latched onto their rifles. Two of them began to approach the hovercraft, while the other two desperately looked towards the Major for direction. That direction actually ended up coming from another source entirely.

"The League will be put under a ComStar Interdiction if any one of you so much as touches this man or his associates!"

Grayson had thought he'd never feel anything but intense and deep hatred for Comstar and its members. The robed man who pushed his way past a few of the guardsman to shield the hovercraft with his body disproved him. In that instant, he could have kissed the acolyte and agreed to a multi-year contract protecting the man with no salvage rights.

As was to be expected, the mere mention of 'ComStar interdiction' brought all movement to a halt and inspired an eerie quiet to fall over the encampement. Even the guardsman who'd been about to fulfill Lord Garth's orders stepped back and brought their laser-rifles back to port-arms. They balked, heads twisting so they could alternate looking at the acolyte, the Major, and Lord Garth in turn, but they remained where they were.

"What do you think you're doing boy—" Lord Garth began, only to be interrupted.

"As the ranking local representative of ComStar and its interests, I am exercising ComStar's authority as a neutral third party to extend a guarantee of safe passage to this man and those with him in the interests of negotiating a ceasefire and performing a more thorough investigation of the events on Tiantan." The robed man—more of a boy now that Grayson looked closely—took on a very smug tone. "Should you take issue with my handling of this affair, you may contact our complaint department on Atrius."

Grayson had to mentally remind himself that laughing would probably inspire Garth to order him shot whatever the consequences.

"Major, you cannot let this go!"

The Major had already returned to examining the map on the table. "A ComStar edict has been declared, milord. My hands are tied. I am just as disappointed as you are and shall surely urge my superiors to bring this matter to Precentor Atreus."

He did not sound at all disappointed.

ComStar HPG Compound

Helmsdown, Helm, Free Worlds League

17 June 3028

HPG Network Available – Password protected

"—nutty tech-worshippers insist she'll be up any moment now…"

The voice was distant and muffled, seeming to fade and flow in intensity at random intervals. Hard to judge, but it almost sounded worried.

Power levels – nominal. Stable supply available.

Primary Systems available - Not enough ports for positive feedback control of nearby (x3) BattleMech units.

"No."

A strange word to say on its own. Whoever the voice was, they must be speaking to someone on a com unit.

Secondary Systems available upon request. Multiple individual connections possible.

"No! I'll handle it…I'll handle it. I said I'll—Gray? Gray? Oh come on, again? I swear I am going to put you in a wheelchair. Maybe then you'll have to actually listen to me for a change."

Not worried anymore. Now the voice was starting to get angry, and that was making it sound much more familiar.

Tertiary Systems – Nominal. Thermal regulation systems returned to human default. System fully recharged. Significant agonist introduction to open μ-opioid receptors. Current excess of provided energy being routed to self-repair processes. Would you like to know more?

Ho—Mariah shoved aside the question in her half-dazed bliss. The mental brutality seemed to surprise the portion of her thoughts that were computerized, and they dutifully retreated to their own duties.

Computers didn't handle the messy realm of human emotion very well. Usually, they drove the human crazy. But Mariah had found a way to beat that. She'd driven the computer crazy! Much better that way.

The withdrawal of the mechanized input left her alone with the image of a decapitated head that was seared into her biological mind. Perhaps worse was the sensation of thrusting the glaive through the neck below that she could still feel. It had been laughably easy to do, physically. Just like the last times, hardly any effort had been required to push the blade through skin and inside.

That was when she had quite paying much attention to anything.

There had been no choice. No other way. Not that she could accomplish. It hadn't really even been her doing it!

One of the Others would have found another way. But she never did. She never could. She just had to be happy the bitch hadn't taken the entire planet. At least She hadn't killed allies this time.

"Feeling alright?"

Mariah opened her eyes, not quite able to reconcile the gentle, almost friendly, voice she was hearing with who she associated that voice with. Her doubts about who the speaker could be were misplaced though. It was, indeed, Lori Kalmar.

Sitting at the edge of the bed, the woman had a book-reader lying half-forgotten at her waist. She was smiling. It was ridiculous. The woman had been practically holding a gun against Mariah's back a few—a little while ago.

Five hours and thirty-seven minutes have passed since this body entered a comatose recovery state.

"I am not in physical pain." Mariah said, forcing her neck to move so she could look at her arm. Someone had taken the time to wrap it in bandages. An unnecessary expenditure, but somehow comforting at the same time. Triage protocols said one didn't use bandages on those who were going to die—or be killed.

Though whether triage protocols applied or not, she couldn't be sure. She, thankfully, didn't seem to be in a hospital. The room lacked the nose-defiling bite of antiseptics, the pristine-but-disgusting over-sanitation and cleanliness of a typical hospital-room, and the bedframe lacked the disturbing aura they took on after supporting too many deaths.

"Which is why I asked if you were feeling alright rather than just if you were in any pain." Lori said, shaking her head. "So let's try again. Are you feeling alright?"

Mariah stared, trying to gauge what the woman wanted from her. The best way of making it through interrogation was to establish the relationship very early and stick to revealing a limited and utterly irrelevant group of details to the interviewer. The kid-gloves Lori seemed to have put on were throwing off that advice, though.

"I am confused." Mariah finally settled on responding, drawing out each word as much as she could as she glanced around the room.

It definitely wasn't a hospital, that much she could be sure of. The pictures on the wall were of people in various locations around Helm instead of the more generalized landscapes hospitals resorted to. In a nearby closet there were racks of clothes, mostly robes and formal male attire but with the occasional piece of leisure-wear mixed in, all of which would definitely not fit her. On the desk was a small tri-vid display, endlessly repeating a short loop of an elderly couple waving. The only vaguely ceremonial or generalized decoration in the entire room was a banner on the door that depicted a series of differently-colored circles shining light downwards.

Lori snorted lightly and her tone took on a slight bite that made it much more familiar, "Join the regiment. We're all confused. You seem to be making a habit of doing that to us. I'd say something like 'turnabout is fair play', but I think we're a little more confused than you."

Mariah couldn't think of any way to respond to that, so she didn't.

"You've got the rumor mill buzzing. Half the Legion thinks you're Morgan Kell's long-lost ancestor. The other half is quite convinced you're some kind of Star League special weapons project. You even managed to crack Hassan. He insists you're a genie. Would you care to alleviate any of that confusion?" Lori asked, folding her lips over one another.

It must be a variant of the 'good interrogator', 'bad interrogator' strategy. Lori was acting as the 'good' one, for some inexplicable reason. But if she refused to divulge anything, then the 'bad' one would come out. Though that situation did ignore the obvious help they'd already given her when she was unconscious.

She hated people sometimes. They were too confusing. At least Darkness and Chaos was straightforward and easy to deal with one way or another.

"What does Carlyle believe?" Mariah muttered. The question didn't matter, but the longer she distracted Lori the more time she'd have to plan some kind of escape. That was definitely what she was asking for.

"I couldn't tell you. He's in one of his moods. Hard to talk to when he gets into those. He's been diving through ComStar records for the last bit, though. I can guess that 'anti-Mech infantry weapons' were high-up on his priority list. Just below 'living shadow monsters' and 'combat skirts'."

Mariah winced at the reference to Saturn's attire. One would think that an ancient, magical kingdom might have come up with more practical attire for its protectors to wear into battle. It would have been nice if they at least covered a little more skin.

"And you?" She heard herself ask, continuing the reversal of the interrogation.

Lori slowly pushed herself back into the chair, and one hand crossed over her chest to prop itself below her jaw. Her eyes narrowed after few seconds, the momentary trace of confusion banished in an instant.

"I'm just as confused as Hassan but less prone to suddenly putting undue stock in the stories I heard as a child. You're trying to dodge my question. Again. Why don't you just explain to me what the hell you are and what the hell happened out there? I can guarantee I'm taking this better than Gray is and you don't have much longer before he takes over."

Ah. So it was a 'good-cop, bad-cop' strategy. That wasn't surprising. But that didn't change how utterly unprepared she was to explain anything. What was she supposed to do? Say 'I'm the last of a team of superpowered reincarnated women from the distant past who protected the Star League from capital-E Evil?'

That was liable to get her a short trip from the room she was in to one with much more padding. If she wasn't already headed there.

"I wouldn't know where to begin." Mariah finally said, feeling somewhat awkward saying something so true. Even before, she had never been the one who had to explain things to people.

"The beginning?" Lori prompted, almost automatically.

That was a rather amusing suggestion.

"Well, James McKenna staged a coup against the Terran Alliance's incompetent government with the help of Uranus and Neptune-" Mariah hesitated for a moment, realizing she was going to have to explain that as well.

Explaining things was hard. Now she could clearly remember why she'd always left it to the Others.

Lori scoffed loud enough for it to be physically felt. "Alright, maybe not the beginning of the entire Star League, alright? Stars above, you are without a doubt the most infuriating person to talk to in the entire Inner Sphere."

A loud series of incomprehensible yells suddenly beat their way through the walls from outside the room. They were followed a few moments later by a wall-echoing thunk. The yells rose in pitch, some of them finally getting loud enough to be recognizable as curse words and their speaker identified by the tone of his voice.

"Second most infuriating person to talk to in the entire Sphere." Lori corrected with a deep sigh as the door opened.

Grayson Carlyle stood in the frame for a moment, chest heaving up and down in a shirt that was half-soaked in sweat. There was a wide brown spot where he had quite evidently spilled something very recently. Mariah suspected the reason he looked so angry had nothing to do with the spill.

"We. Need. To talk." Grayson said, the words coming in harsh bites in-between heaving gasps of air. He took a few steps inside the room, tossing the door closed behind him. It slapped against the hand of a robed man behind him with a sharp crack, but the other man ignored what had to be an extraordinarily painful hit to almost gently close the door.

Grayson wasn't all that big, but when his entire attention was on something he could accomplish 'intimidating' very easily. Being in a bed, more than even meeting him entirely naked the first time, only made that feeling worse. There was something about being comfortable while someone was angry at you that felt very wrong.

Being high on drugs probably didn't help either. She was getting really tired of the machine in her head screwing with her perception all the time with such things. Eventually it had to run out of material to synthesize drugs with, right?

"Gray, calm down." Lori said, rising from her seat.

"Oh, I am calm. Calmest I've been in days. Being surrounded by the folks who were trying to kill me and everyone I know this morning is just a recipe for making me calm." Grayson said, his eyes not even shifting from Mariah's.

He didn't look very calm.

"And calm waters run deep, Lori. Deep enough to start asking the big, important questions."

Lori raised one eyebrow, "Like what?"

"Like 'What the hell are you', for starters!" Grayson snapped, the words growled so loudly that they shook some of the smaller knick-knacks on the desk.

Even through the drug-induced haze, Mariah winced at that. The sentiment at least still recognized her as a person, but the tone certainly didn't. Grayson spoke the words in the same cold way that generations of Star League scientists had discussed 'its status' and 'what the hell is wrong with it' when they gathered around her after a particularly damaging 'event'.

Lori was about to say something, likely something insulting and angry judging by the furrow that developed in between her eyes. But the robed man behind Grayson interrupted before she could begin.

"She is a cybernetic organism. Living tissue over a metal endoskeleton."

The room went very quiet. So quiet that when Grayson turned to the man, the fabric of his shirt could be clearly heard rustling together. Lori's jaw worked for a moment in an attempt to say something, but she didn't manage to actually produce any words. Everyone stared at the young ComStar acolyte. He seemed to be about to go on, but withered underneath their eyes.

Unlike the other two, Mariah wasn't all that surprised. If anything Grayson had told her when she'd been 'Mariah' held up, then ComStar and its members were the closest thing to an intellectual class the Inner Sphere had left. The man might have recognized her arm for what it was, or noticed the self-repair mechanism doing its job on it and put two-and-two together. Or maybe, she could hope, he'd been able to track her connection to the HPGs artificial jump point once she'd come into close enough proximity by the resulting disturbances! It would be so nice to have someone intelligent to explain things to! It would make things so much easier!

The robed man laughed nervously. He seemed to physically force himself not to retreat under the three pairs of eyes that were leveled at him. Planting his feet in the carpet of the floor, one hand unconsciously started to flex into a fist. A nervous habit if she'd ever seen one. Intellectuals tended to develop them as a way of dealing with social situations they were uncomfortable with.

"You could have mentioned this before, Eli." Lori said.

"I wasn't certain until I saw some of the scans! Besides. I actually—uh—saw it in an old action vid. It seems to fit."

Then again, idiots could also develop nervous habits. She couldn't rely on an idiot to explain things. Perhaps…Perhaps it was time she actually participated in a conversation. If for no other reason than to keep Grayson from recategorizing her as an 'it'.

"I am not a 'cybernetic organism'. They just gave me cybernetic parts. And myomer replacements for my muscles. And whatever else the best and brightest of the Hegemony could come up with, 'to make me more efficient at carrying out my duties and more compliant in obeying the orders given me in the course thereof'."

Mariah crossed her arms in a futile attempt to relieve the soreness that had developed below her abdomen as she spoke. "And they removed anything that got in the way."

Mariah couldn't figure out if the dryness in her mouth was a result of the drugs or the words. She decided she would blame the drugs. It made for a convenient excuse, at least. She did her best to scowl towards the ComStar acolyte, but the inability to really feel her face made her unsure how successful the attempt was.

"I am Mariah Hawkins. Duchess Saturn and, on those occasions She uses my body, Sailor Saturn." Another partial lie, but at least this time it was mostly true instead of fabricated wholly. She was, after all, Duchess Saturn and Sailor Saturn.

The room once again went quiet as the grave with her words. Which was perfectly fine with her. Even through the detachment provided by the drugs, she hurt. The awkward silence gave her time to fight aside that old pain.

Everyone else decided on the same instant to speak their mind.

"So multiple personalities, then?" Grayson said, one hand rising to shoulder-level with the palm upraised.

"Duchess Saturn? Sailor Saturn?" Lori repeated, almost whispering.

"You're one of the Guardians?" The ComStar acolyte asked, eyes just about popping out of his head. He looked to be on the verge of bowing.

It figured that it would be the dumbest of the three with the best question. And it was truly saying something that he could be the dumbest, because Lori and Grayson were—kindhearted and commendable as they were—exceptionally stupid. Though that might just be the poor state of education in the Inner Sphere. God, one of their men thought she was a genie!

This was not going to be easy. She was going to have to use short words. Perhaps a diagram was called for? Perhaps if she just went in order it would be easier? Work her way to the more confusing parts?

"Multiple personalities might not be the worst way of putting it..." Mariah trailed off as she realized she didn't know how to continue and gave a slight shrug. She moved her eyes to Lori.

"Yes, 'Sailor Saturn' and 'Duchess Saturn'. Ever since the Cameron edict of 2351 in the latter case, anyways. He reserved the nine planets of the solar system as titles for us." Mariah ignored the stab of pain the final words evoked from below her abdomen and focused on moving on. The entire family was dead. That was about as much revenge as could be expected for what he and his descendants had done. Not that she should desire something so petty. But it was very hard not to.

"Nine planets?" Grayson began, only to shake aside the question. "No, never mind that. I think you were just getting to the part where you explained what 'Guardians' were and how it relates to you beating up shadowy, darkness-covered 'Mechs in a frilly skirt…And what the hell ComStar Precentor's are doing turning into black goo-creatures…And why the hell you'd threaten to blow up the planet if I don't help you when you're done and, and, and—" Grayson faltered, suddenly snapping his attention back to her. He still sounded like he wanted to throttle her, but it was at least tempered somewhat by confusion.

Or could that be fear?

"Wait. Wait. No. Slow down and let's refill the helium tanks on this jumpship to crazy." Grayson said. In Mariah's opinion he was the only one who needed to slow down. "There's more of you?"

Mariah took a deep breath. Eli seemed to be on the verge of saying something, but she spoke up before he could. It would be best to try and answer something herself. No matter how painful it was undoubtedly going to be.

"There were."

Mariah pushed herself up and scooted to the edge of the bed. She took another deep breath. She could do this. From…Not the beginning. That would take too long, be too complicated and require more honesty than she cared for. But from a suitable midpoint.

She caught a corner of her lip ticking upwards as she began and forced it back to its regular place. "I'm the last of nine superpowered women from the distant past that were reincarnated in the latter part of the twentieth century and charged with protecting Earth, and later on the Hegemony and the League in general from the forces of Evil—as possessed the ComStar Precentor I killed—by the Moon Princess. Who also served as Sailor Moon. She and her husband would have ruled over a new golden age of mankind had the Cameron's not been allowed to usurp the position in the interest of keeping peace."

Quiet.

"You know, I think I might have preferred 'genie' as an explanation. Made more sense." Grayson finally said, resting back against the wall of the room.

Eli seemed to have crossed from awe to outright hero-worship. His knees were visibly shaking and before he propped himself on the edge of the desk he looked to be on the verge of dropping to his knees and proclaiming some kind of divine revelation. It made Mariah distinctly uncomfortable since she didn't deserve it.

Lori was the most well-prepared, being already seated, and merely leaned backwards. "So what do you-or is it Saturn?-do besides take out 'Mechs and decapitate evil Precentors?"

Mariah hadn't expected such a coherent question and shrugged, "I mainly just survive. That's the point of the cybernetic parts. Saturn? She is Death. The Grim Reaper. Change and entropy incarnated. She kills-or changes-planets. Bringing down the Glaive can cause all kinds of variations that can make planets more habitable as Old is cleared away for New. For centuries the Star League's use for her was as a primary step in new terraforming efforts."

Grayson snorted and rubbed his face with a hand. "You're saying you were some kind of wish-granting superwoman that the Star League's Department of Mega-Engineering used to change planets?"

"Yes. Or destroy them." She didn't need to elaborate on how they'd gotten Her to do that. Such explanation would only lead to questions that would be even more awkward.

Eli thunked against the floor, apparently unable to stand any longer. Grayson went very pale. Lori blinked in the slow, deliberate manner of someone attempting to come to terms with finding out a childhood friend was a mass-murderer. Which was perhaps the most sensible reaction Mariah could imagine.

HPG Station accessed. Retrieving personal mail for all aliases...

1 New Message. Access Y/N? Y.

Mariah couldn't conceal her surprise at the contents of the message and the total lack of condemnation within. She couldn't have forgotten. So why?


	6. Chapter 6 - Mixed Messages

**HPG Message-collection Center—Private, Noncommercial  
Geneva, Terra  
17 June 3028**

"Will that be all, Missus Meiou?"

It took her a moment to respond to the comment. It had been a _long_ time since she'd heard her maiden name spoken. A long time, even, since she'd thought of herself using it.

"Oh yes, of course. All finished up, now. Thank you so much for your help, I'm afraid it's just been so long since I had to send a message and all this new technology can be so confusing sometimes." Setsuna said, nodding enthusiastically and waving one hand up-and-down in time with her head to add to the effect.

The robed girl who'd shown her how to use the hilariously jerry-rigged and dilapidated equipment for composing and sending a message almost visibly inflated with the thanks. Or perhaps it was pride in her Order? Either way it wasn't very proper. But she was only in her teens. Teenagers could be a handful to teach proper etiquette and decorum. At least she was appropriately courteous.

"ComStar does its best to preserve and advance what remains of human technology." She said. A hand emerged from the folds of the robe to flutter towards the exit, "May the peace of Blake be upon you in the remainder of your day."

"Thank you." Setsuna repeated again, unsure how else to respond.

It was a little funny, really. Jerome Blake would have been mortified at becoming a religious icon. Or at the very least would have spent a few hours in discussion with the girl to try and draw out whether she had an honest belief that could be beneficial or if it was just the result of slavish devotion to her Order's code because it was all she knew. Setsuna suspected she knew the answer already, but she didn't have time to concern herself with such a minor matter at the moment. There were larger players in ComStar she needed to be concerned with.

Which was a first. After so long without any need to concern herself with the passage of time or the efficient usage of it at all, it was very odd to suddenly be back in the realm where it mattered. Where what she decided to do with every moment had that pressing feeling of weight and importance that was missing from the limbo she'd occupied for so many years. She'd actually had to buy a datapad just so she had something that would help her keep track of 'time' as a measurement rather than just a concept.

She was still embarrassed by that. But she'd get used to it again. In time.

Stepping onto the crowded streets, Setsuna effortlessly slid herself into the stream of foot-traffic on the nearest automated walkway. She only had a half-hour to reach the University to make her appointment. Centuries before it would have been plenty of time to cross the city. But ComStar's efforts at preserving the decaying transportation infrastructure in Geneva had not been as successful as they might like. On her way to the HPG facility, there had been multiple sections where the automatic walkway had been completely inoperable. She suspected the route to the University would be similar.

Perhaps she didn't have to worry about it too much. She couldn't be certain that anyone would meet her at the University. Or, for that matter, if there was any point to it if they did. The program Ami had coded into the HPG network might not have worked properly, and after so long she doubted that what she needed would still be there. For all she knew, all she'd done was send a message out to an office that no longer existed.

A communicator would've made things much easier, but she wasn't entirely confident in using that network anymore. Amaris and his minions had compromised it before. Having to use the HPG to contact Saturn was risky enough.

All she could do was cross her fingers and hope that fate delivered what was needed.

Surprisingly, the trip to the university was free of any maintenance delays. What it wasn't free of was other pedestrians. Some mid-level FedSun noble was apparently visiting the campus to give a presentation on some of the provisions of the FedCom Accords that had, until recently, remained classified. There were scores of students and others flocking onto the university grounds to attend, many of them with ribbons or pins that signaled their opposition or support for the move.

The signage some of them carried proclaiming Hanse Davion as a new Amaris or painting Maximillian Liao as Satan with epicanthic folds was a bit much, in her opinion. As were the screaming arguments and near-riots the folks carrying those signs got into as she tried to make her way to the Archives building. ComStar's police forces, looking very regal and authoritative on their horses at the edges of the protests, were not present in either enough number or with enough force to control the unruly mobs on both sides. Fistfights seemed to be the primary method by which their disagreements were settled.

"Re-sist! Re-sist! Resist the Steiner Fist!" One group of protestors bellowed.

Setsuna moved around the outside of them, trying to stick to the small bit of walkway that seemed to be neutral ground between them and their opposition. That opposition, many of whom sported mailed fists on their lapels, responded to the chant with their own suggestion that those screaming it do something anatomically impossible in front of Takashi Kurita. Setsuna had to push her way through the end of the crowd to avoid being caught-up in the ensuing fight that broke out. Apparently, the Kuritan solution to the Steiner Fist was to hit the ones bearing it with their own fists.

A _real_ Japanese would have more self-control.

"Hanse, Hanse, you big ba-by, you can keep your Aris-toc-ra-cy!"

She winced as she was forced into another portion of the near-riot. That chant was rather painful to even listen to. It didn't flow very well and the ones chanting it clearly ran out of breath halfway through, so it lost virtually all of its impact. The fact it came from a group rallying around the clutched-sword flag of the Capellan Confederation only made it worse. There was little in the universe worse than a self-righteous protestor who didn't recognize their own hypocrisy.

Setsuna managed to make it past the Capellans without incident. There seemed to be a few more of the ComStar police stationed near that crowd, so they were apparently forced into being more low-profile.

At first, she thought that she was through it. Her pace picked up as the number of people thinned, and the sounds of the other protestors slowly began to fade behind her as she put some distance between them and herself. However, she realized her mistake when one of the people walking beside her withdrew a small megaphone from their backpack and directed it to the sky.

"What do we want?" The girl yelled through the device, lending her voice a half-muffled and tinny quality that was especially painful on the ears.

The crowd's responses were not as uniform as the girl had apparently expected.

"Subsidized HPG traffic?"

"A New Captain-General?"

"Lower taxes?"

"Free Andurien!"

"Elections?"

As she walked, the loose gathering of people disintegrated into small—sometimes individual on individual—pockets of bickering and disagreement over how they should respond to the question. Which pretty much cemented the crowd as being made of people from the Free Worlds League. Did they even know where they were or why they had come, or had someone just promised them free food?

At least it made them easy to get around.

Luckily for her, the Archives building itself was much less busy. Aside from an offhand glance from a young man at the front desk, she might as well have had the building to herself. Annoying as the political side-show might be, it did make for a useful distraction.

Particularly when the man proved much more concerned with that side of things as opposed to little things like letting non-students or non-teachers into the records-basement. He never even asked for an identification. Which made the forged teacher credentials she'd spent a solid ten hours making—granted, most of them coming from her having to figure out how to use the clunky software ComStar had made standard in the 31st century—utterly pointless. But she told herself not to be too angry about it. The man had, after all, tried to ask her out.

Still had it.

The solitude and quiet of the lift, and the records basement after, were an immense relief after the screaming hellhole she'd had to thread her way through above. The musty, paper-and-stale-air smell almost exactly matched that of the limbo she'd been forced into for the past years, but somehow it was calming anyways.

Setsuna had to fight down a smirk at the thought of whether or not they had any copies of the Immortal Warrior in any of the rooms. Probably not. Such wouldn't be high-culture enough unless the College's perspectives had changed since she'd last been here…Which was, admittedly, possible.

She idly fiddled with the nearby boxes and computer storage towers as she waited, running a finger over faded labels and occasionally pausing to squint at one that had been sitting so long it had collected too much dust to be easily read. On a whim, she opened a box labeled 'Misc'.

The box held manila envelopes stacked with primary documents from a rather frighteningly wide set of dates. There didn't seem to be any order to them, either. Which might have been insulting to her inner professor if it wasn't for the fact they were such an eclectic mix of documents anyways. On top was what she hoped was a copy of the blueprints for the University's 'Cameron Hall', built in 2400 AD. But the very next item in the stack was a booklet of mimeographed sheets that detailed the specifications of a fusion-powered all-terrain vehicle the Archaeological Department had purchased in 3010.

She closed the box and set it back in its place on the shelf. It was possible that whoever organized the things, if anyone, had their own system for keeping track of what was what. Thomas had been terrible about leaving his notes spread out all over the place in seemingly random piles that had only made sense to him. One time he'd even—

The lift made a slight buzzing sound, jerking her back to the present. With a practiced walk that wasn't hurried but still managed to move her quicker than a more relaxed speed would have, Setsuna took up a position on the far side of the shelving from the lift's exit. Close enough that she could see through the spaces in the shelving and tell who it was, but far enough away that it would give her a minor advantage over her pursuer if she needed to make a break for it.

The man who exited the lift did not look like the kind even a mouse would think of running away from. He, in fact, looked more like a university professor than a good number of actual university professors Setsuna had seen. White was streaked through his hair, and his face was more wrinkles than smooth lines. But there was an indescribable air of _knowledge_ about him. As if he would have a valuable insight into something even if he didn't know the actual answer.

The only thing that spoiled the appearance was the way his head twisted left-and-right and his eyes bounced around the room, scanning for threats. That was decidedly not the appearance of a professor. At least, it wasn't the typical appearance of a professor. She imagined the protest-riots going on outside were causing no small number of teachers to adopt similar mannerisms for the day in the interest of mere survival.

He was exactly who she was waiting for. The fact he had shown up at all said good things. But the obvious fear he was in counteracted it completely.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

"Hello. Can I help you find something?" Setsuna said. She allowed a trace of an accent to enter into the German words and peeked out from behind the shelf she was at.

"Ah. Yes. I suppose." The man said after a slight jump where he clutched the bag at his side. The move looked out of place on a man his age. It might have been more believable on someone forty or fifty years his junior, and even then she would have giggled at it.

"I'm trying to find the records on the…uh…Sailor Wars?"

Well hurray for the 31st century's communications. Sometimes they did work.

"I think I can help with that. Would you follow me?" Setsuna said, trying to tamp down the flutter of excitement his words had brought. It was so nice when things went right for a change, and even better when she got to actually take part in them! Watching shit repeatedly go wrong for centuries was not her idea of a good time.

"No. No. No. I need to go. Just…Just _here_. I don't want to know any more than I have to." He said, sliding the shoulder-strap of the bag off and practically throwing it into her hands. She barely had a hold of it before he was retreating back to the lift and slammed the call button.

"He also wanted me to tell you 'the clergy isn't reliable'." The man continued, now holding both hands up as he backed into the lift. The doors were closing almost before she had a chance to get a single word in.

"Wait, I need—" She began, only for the doors to close before she could finish the sentence.

She wasn't quite sure how to take _any_ of that. Worse, now she had to question whether or not her message hadn't gotten garbled in transmission somehow. What possible explanation existed for that kind of behavior?

Perhaps the larger question was whether things had even gone right.

Setsuna tore open the bag. The top was filled with miscellaneous odds and ends that anyone might carry in a hanbag, and for a moment her throat was parched in the absolute fear that they wouldn't be there. But tucked away underneath a semi-hidden flap in the bag were what she had been looking for.

Setsuna collapsed against the rack behind her and let the bag dangle at her feet. Confusing as it might have been, at least she'd gotten what she needed. She brought her head up towards the ceiling, and let herself just calm down and breathe in the relaxing, stale air.

Now, she just had to hope the message to Saturn had made it.

 **ComStar HPG Compound  
Helmsdown, Helm, Free Worlds League  
17 June 3028**

Mariah mentally cast aside the HPG message and shot off the bed, both because it was the right thing to do and because it was the first step in carrying out the message's directions. If she was to make an interstellar trip with anything resembling subtlety, she would need Grayson Carlyle and his Gray Death Legion to help her do it.

She dropped almost immediately to one knee beside the fallen ComStar acolyte. She wasted a single heartbeat wondering if he deserved the worry, but cast the second-guessing aside. She'd have been able to tell if he didn't. Besides, she wasn't really doing this for him. Appearances could be more convincing and useful than complete honesty.

Carefully, and ignoring the stab of self-hatred the thought elicited in her stomach, she rolled Eli onto his back. There was nothing on his robes she could see that might constrict bloodflow, but they also concealed most of his body. Perhaps ComStar required its members to wear constricting clothing underneath the robes? It wouldn't be the weirdest religious command she'd ever heard of.

She ripped the robes aside. There were no garments underneath, which meant no constriction of blood vessels.

Mariah scooted forward slightly to lean over the acolyte's face. He was breathing, but his eyes were unresponsive. Which was probably better for him. Her presence wouldn't help, since she was the one who'd caused the whole episode in the first place.

But when did her presence ever help? Best to do what she could anyways. Now that she could.

Mariah ripped off the bandages that were over her arm, wincing slightly at the feedback the newly-grown synthskin covering the appendage sent. Ignoring the questioning head-tilts from both Gray and Lori, she used the free hand to force Eli's legs up slightly. She could explain later.

She let her left hand—the one whose covering she was more used to now—rest on Eli's chest, letting it rise and fall in rhythm with his breathing. Focusing on the prickling hairs that rubbed against the palm of her left hand and the smooth fabric of his robe in her right, she let Herself push outwards towards him. His eyes fluttered open just as she began to feel Her reach through the left-hand, and she reflexively clenched her right to slow the process.

"You experienced a syncope." She said, disliking the feel of so many words. But that was Her thinking, not her.

With a heave, She pushed past the barrier of the Vessel's hand and into the other Sentient Thing.

No medical danger. The pressure of the fluids inside were returning to what would be typical of other Sentient Things its age. The beat of its vascular muscle was also proceeding at an even pace. There was no indication of an internal fluid shortage or faulty glucose-regulation mechanisms. Its involuntary loss of consciousness had been reflexive, not symptomatic. A few minor corrections to speed things along and all would be well.

The Vessel pulled Her back. She hadn't done much while inside except nudge the body towards where it was supposed to be. Such a minor matter would have even been accomplished by the Sentient Things' primitive caretaking. Eventually.

She blinked. Shook her head slightly to clear it of the...whatever-it-was aftereffects that she still had no name for. Eli would be fine.

"I what?" Eli asked dumbly.

"Fainted." Mariah provided, through a yawn. It was once again quite bemusing to see just how little someone who was supposed to be intelligent seemed to actually _know_.

"No I didn't." Eli said immediately, beginning to rise. Or, at least, to try and rise. Mariah's hand on his chest still kept him from doing much more than breathing. Even if he was fine, there was no sense in testing the issue so quickly.

"Yeah, you did kiddo. Can't say as I blame you, either. I'd be right down there with you if I wasn't lucky enough to have a wall rather than the edge of a table to keep me up. Just stick right there and take a few breaths—God knows we all need them—before you explain why _you_ recognize any of this." Grayson said, kneeling down on the opposite side of the acolyte.

His eyes fell on Mariah, and it was definitely fear in them now. Which was disappointing, but to be expected. She'd have to question the sanity of anyone who wasn't frightened of Her. Even if they might only be frightened by the sheer volume of crazy they assumed when someone claimed to be Her.

Mariah fought down another yawn, and considered getting to her feet before deciding that the floor was comfortable enough. No matter how much she practiced explaining things, she doubted the reactions people had were going to get any better. This would all be much easier if they'd made their existence known a millennium before.

Heck. 'Easier'? None of this would be _happening_ if Usagi had done that. But no. Too stubborn and insistent that mankind had to be ignorant from the Dark to be protected from it. As if that had ever helped. Stupid.

Though, now that she thought about it, that did raise the question of how Eli had recognized who she was.

Mariah gave the young man a closer once-over even as Grayson continued his own search for answers.

"So you _can_ blow up planets? I guess it wasn't an idle threat yo—" Grayson paused for a moment to stare into her eyes. "—your 'Sailor Saturn' side was making?"

He visibly swallowed and shook himself out of whatever thoughts staring into her eyes had inspired. It was almost amusing the way she could see him drag his mind away from anything involving panic to instead focus on the problem at hand.

She could understand why he would be a successful military commander. All the best had possessed that ability to enforce calm on themselves even in the face of the unknown or incomprehensible. Kerensky himself had been able to bury panic in rational thought as well. At least until near the end when he'd apparently succumbed to the insanity alongside everyone else.

Not that she was in a position to judge. Perhaps if she'd been able to—

She mentally buried the thought before it could be finished. Focus on what she had to do, not what was already done.

"I wouldn't say 'blow up'. Even 'destroy' is probably a bit too loose, though She probably could if She wanted. Either way? No. Not an idle threat. She doesn't make those."

Gray's head shook, and one hand came up to rub across his brow. But it seemed to be more of a reflexive reaction than anything more telling about whether he believed anything she was saying. Oddly, the mercenary followed-up the display with a short chuckle.

"The universe must hate me. It just doesn't want me to be happy." He muttered. Mariah wasn't quite sure if he meant it to be out-loud or not, but fought down the mad laughter she was tempted to indulge in. He thought the universe hated _him_? How _cute_.

She took a long breath. Forced herself to calm down. That wouldn't help. The man was visibly frayed as it was. The last thing she wanted to do was give him a solid reason to doubt her even more or take that last step over the cliff into madness. There should only be one crazy in a room at a time, after all, and she was already violating that rule since she qualified as two or three crazies.

"Hate you, Mister Carlyle? You stumbled over a Castle Brian and Guardian Saturn just in time to be saved from a Daimon. The universe clearly loves you." Eli said, bringing his head up and using one hand to close his robes back over his chest. He sounded slightly less dazed and confused than he had earlier, and when he looked at Mariah his eyes were focused and intent in a way they hadn't been.

There was also entirely too much kindness in those eyes when he looked at her. Which settled the question of just how much the man knew. However much it was, it wasn't the truth. Otherwise he wouldn't have looked at her like that. None of them would have.

"You'll pardon me if I don't jump for joy. I haven't been feeling very loved lately. " Gray shot back. He grunted, "But hey, now that you're feeling better, perhaps you'd care to explain this 'Guardian' business? And _why you didn't mention it sooner_? Seems like it could've come up while we were wasting time in Rachan's office. 'By the way, Grayson, old buddy, the girl in there is a centuries-old supersoldier that can pop-off _planets_.' Kind of important information there, don't you think?"

 _Rachan, Emilio. Precentor of ComStar. Deceased approximately six hours ago due to our action. Further details would require active acquisition measures on an HPG-wide network._

She hated when the computerized portion of her thoughts butted in like that. She especially hated when it used 'our'. She hated it even more when it was so aggravatingly useful.

Trying to ignore the source of the information, she took note of what Gray's words combined with it told her. Or rather, what the words he didn't say told her. It didn't sound like he'd found anything that cleared his name in Rachan's office. Exploiting that would be an easy route into getting his help. A common flaw among military commanders was growing overly-attached to their units and excessively hateful of their enemies. That could only be worse in the case of mercenaries.

Another pang of guilt at what she was doing. Once again throttled under the knowledge she had to do it. It wasn't like she wasn't going to help Grayson! She would just make certain he helped her first. Her duty was more important than his reputation.

"You're not supposed to know about her at all." Eli hissed. He seemed to be on the verge of getting up, perhaps even taking a swing at Grayson. But the anger drained out of him in a wave that left him looking almost as fragile as he had when he'd fainted.

"We were supposed to be the ones to find her."

Eli shakily got to his feet. The way he reverently stared up at her as she helped only made her feel worse. Who did this man think she was? More importantly, who did ComStar think she was? 'Guardian' had been the term the Cameron dynasty and League had preferred for her and the others. That wasn't a legacy she felt comfortable trusting.

"Colonel, ComStar has a holy mission to protect this woman. Including from the prying eyes and minds of certain disgraced mercenaries." The words came out with all the force of the physical attack Eli had seemed about to engage in earlier, and both Grayson and Lori recoiled at the insult to their status.

Mariah was just confused by it. Grayson hadn't mentioned ComStar doing anything beyond keeping the HPG network running—and conspiring to get him and his unit killed so they could steal the Star League technology they'd found. Certainly nothing involving protecting her.

 _ComStar claims itself to be a peaceful order dedicated to 'the unity and prosperity of mankind'._

 _Publicly available sources of repute cite ComStar as a neutral party dedicated to maintaining the operation of the HPG network and other minutiae of Star League technology which they come across._

Eli's tone softened as he continued, "I will try to find any evidence that might exonerate you of wrongdoing, if for no other reason than to thank you for doing our job, but you should step away from this while you can. Leave it to us."

 _Some indication of distrust or disbelief of ComStar's neutrality from less-reputable sources. Many of these allege connections to unlikely-to-impossible conspiracies tied to secret societies or ethnic heritages. There are repeated allegations of a 'doomsday philosophy', though multiple different conspiracy sites seem to push their own version of the particulars._

 _One of these alleges Jerome Blake was a velociraptor._

Was that disbelief? Was she hearing disbelief in the commentary of a machine?

 _No indication in freely-available sources ComStar has any 'holy mission' to protect the Guardians of the Star League. Look further into this matter, Y/N?_

 _Y_

Mariah bit down on the inside of her lip as she was bombarded by a slew of messages, reports, status updates, and correspondence. She mentally flittered through scores of transmissions from Helm's HPG, occasionally delayed by a few microseconds as she had to force her way through some cobbled-together security software of some kind or another.

It would have been quite draining if she weren't wirelessly drawing power from the HPGs fusion plant. Mentally, she had to cede most of the sorting to the superior raw processing power of the machine. Trying to scan and understand so much information accomplished little but give her a headache.

Outside her head, Grayson was turning his attention to the ComStar acolyte. She had to admit, Eli's pitch sounded convincing. He clearly believed what he was saying. Whether it was anything she wanted to have any part in was another question entirely. Based on what she'd heard from Grayson about the quasi-religious order and the fact that one of their members had been possessed, she was tempted to put more trust in Gray's mercenary company. At least greed was predictable.

Still, it might just give her an alternative to using Grayson. The only question was how viable that alternative was. From what little she'd sorted through, that answer was looking like 'not very'. ComStar seemed to be nothing more than a message-handling service. Perhaps if she focused on Rachan's messages she'd find something more interesting?

They were more heavily secured anyways. She actually had to focus on them for a brief moment to pound through their encryption.

"Oh yes, leave it to you. Remind me again who it was that actually completed this 'holy mission' of yours? Oh, that's right. _Me and my men_. The ones your order was doing its level-best to get killed a few hours ago. I'll 'step away' from this," Grayson waved his hand at Mariah, "As soon as ComStar steps-back its declaration of the Legion as an outlaw regiment!"

Mariah was rather offended by the offhand dismissal, but she was too preoccupied to raise an immediate objection. Rachan's communications made for a much more interesting study than the disorganized mess of random traffic she had started out by going through. His messages were certainly more interesting than the dick-measuring contest Grayson and Eli were engaged in.

Rachan's messages started out with a trace of innocence and naivety she couldn't help but envy. He'd sent a series of long messages to his mother on Lipton, in one of them going so far as to apologize for missing her birthday for the third year in a row. He'd explained away his absence by claiming to be 'on important ComStar business'. Weekly messages between the same station and Rachan followed for almost three months, all filled with loving exchanges that seemed like a mockery considering what the Precentor had become.

The memory of the blade at the end of Glaive sliding into his neck tried to butt its way into her thoughts. She swallowed and refocused on mentally sorting-through the messages the HPG had handled.

Rachan's communications to his mother grew shorter and less warm as time went on. They were little things, really. He quit signing them 'Love' at the end. He became less open about what he was doing. He quit reacting to the stories she shared, or offering any acknowledgement of the rest of his family when they were mentioned. Eventually, he quit replying to his mother entirely a few months prior.

But he'd sent one message to someone else in late-January? Text-only, but using a rather bizarre security-coding that was magnitudes more complex than what had encrypted his personal traffic. More tellingly, it was sent on to the New Earth HPG station for rebroadcast to an unnamed source rather than to Lipton.

It took her a full second of concentrated effort to get through the encryption. Even then, the reward was only a trio of words. But they at least made it clear that whatever ComStar's mission was, it didn't only consist of keeping technology running.

"I will see to it, as soon as I can, that a more fair inquiry is taken into your company's actions, Colonel. But there are more important things at play here than you can even _imagine_." Eli growled, raising a fist slightly.

Rachan had been looking for Her. He never said as much in any of the traffic to his mother, but it was the only explanation for what he alluded to his mission being. That single message at the end—retransmitted from Terra to who-knew-where—sealed it. Though who he'd sent 'I've found her.' to was a mystery worth looking into.

Eli had no idea how true his words were. Or perhaps he did. She wasn't quite sure which of the possibilities about the ComStar acolyte was more frightening. Idealism could be more frightening than the opposite, sometimes. Especially when it drove people to serving as hosts for an agent of the Dark. Rachan had apparently found that out the hard way.

Once someone was that far gone, there were only two ways of helping them.

"I am going for a walk." Mariah said quietly, slipping the words in before Grayson had a chance to continue the argument. Both him and Eli started slightly at the words, as if they'd temporarily forgotten who they were arguing about. Which shouldn't surprise her any more, but was aggravating all the same. Centuries went by, some mystical order rose-up dedicated to finding her, and when they did she was still talked _around_ instead of _to_. As if she wasn't even present.

It was far too similar to conversations the scientists and the Intelligence folks had played out. Or even discussions Haruka, Michiru and Setsuna had engaged in. Always talking about her—or, more often, about Her—instead of having a conversation with her.

Eli raised a hand and began to say something. She wasn't willing to listen.

"Is that a problem?" She asked, stressing the last word just enough to make it obvious the only acceptable answer was 'no'.

"I was just going to offer to come with you." He flushed, and the hand dropped.

An escort. Exactly what she didn't want or need. No doubt he'd talk at her the entire time if he came along. Either that or he'd continue accosting her with that damned puppy-dog look of absolute adoration and worship. She was in no mood to suffer either.

"I am going for a walk alone, then, thank you. Is _that_ a problem?"

"The place is a bit confusing." Grayson, to his credit, looked even more embarrassed than Eli.

Mariah tilted her head a precise amount that decades of experience dealing with scientists had taught her communicated the perfect mixture of arrogant amusement and condescension. She despised seeing the gesture. It was one of the most infuriating things she could think of witnessing. From the looks on Gray and Eli's faces, her own version was just as effective. Though both were too polite to mention it.

"Colonel Carlyle, I have a supercomputer inside my head. I _think_ I'll be able to keep myself from getting lost."

She didn't have any trouble shouldering her way past the two men and out the door.

Stepping into the dull, gray hallway outside the room felt more like stepping into a glacial lake. A knot that had been slowly tying at the center of her head as Lori, Eli and Grayson had interrogated her in turn unraveled in a glorious instant. Her shoulders dropped as minutes of hard-coiled stress melted away. She blinked, and let out a breath she didn't realize she had been holding almost since she'd woken up.

 _Contacting New Earth HPG…_

 _…_

 _Tracing routing information, outgoing message C*-1R1988O2239M_

In the background of her thoughts, just below conscious awareness, she let the computer do its job. Trying to trace an outgoing message through stations that had rebroadcast it was a time-consuming process. First she had to establish a connection to the HPG on New Earth, and that meant drawing a lot of power, both processing and physical, from the station she was at.

She might have been able to speed the process up by directly interfacing with the Generator, but she enjoyed the slightly slower pace that wireless interaction forced on her. It was too easy to lose herself when she linked directly. Too much like when She took over. At least in a 'Mech, she retained some sense of self. It was just a broader, larger-than-life, sense. Like she was the only person floating above an ocean. Being hooked into the HPG network was more like being drowned in that ocean.

Unsure which direction to go, and entirely unwilling to find out where the hallway lead by looking into the station's schematics, Mariah randomly turned to the left and began walking.

The lack of guards outside the room she'd been in was more revealing than anything else she could imagine. When she spared a moment to look for it, she couldn't even find anything besides passive security systems recording her passage through the hall. Unless ComStar was much better than she could possibly imagine, they were willingly giving her the chance to freely travel the building.

 _Connected: New Earth HPG…_

 _Message C*-1R1988O2239M received April 12, 3028. Rebroadcast to Capolla station B._

 _Contacting Capolla station B…_

She had to wonder whether Grayson would be so accommodating on the way to Terra if she used him to get there instead of whatever resources Eli and ComStar might have for such a trip. Or, perhaps more importantly, she had to wonder if the mercenary would be as accommodating after they reached the planet as it seemed the mysterious 'technology-cult' would be. The last thing she needed, for his sake, was the man butting his nose into business it did not belong in. At least Eli seemed to have some understanding of what it was She faced and the dangers involved.

Things would have been so much easier if there were still an SLDF fleet she could commandeer. Perhaps a fleet was being too greedy, even. If there were just a jumpship she could use, it would make things so much quicker and simpler. But needs must when the devil drove.

"Can _I_ ask you a question for a change?"

Mariah started slightly at the unexpected voice, and couldn't help but be embarrassed as she had to physically whip her head around to get a glimpse of Lori behind her. She should have been keeping half a mind on the security feeds of the ComStar facility, but tracing Rachan's last message and her own navel-gazing had made her disregard such a simple precaution. She had to slow down. There weren't time for mistakes like that.

"Does the concept of 'alone' not exist in the year 3028?" Mariah snapped, hating the petulant tone of her voice as she spoke but utterly incapable of doing anything about it. She couldn't even quite identify where it came from, but it felt gloriously satisfying to let out.

Lori was very still. The other woman visibly fought back her first response and instead nodded with a harsh movement of her head that spoke of a withdrawn rage.

"I'll take that as a 'no' for the moment then. Excuse me." Lori said, coming to a stop and beginning to turn back towards the room Mariah and she had come out of.

 _This behavior is nontypical and warrants further scrutiny to identify potential—_

Mariah closed her eyes and mentally threw the machine's thoughts into the corner of her head with a scolding to stick to their real job. No shit it was 'nontypical'. She didn't need—or want—that kind of obvious observation from the thing. It had more important things to do and it was utterly incompetent at social interaction.

Which, counting Her, made for three of them in the same body with the same problem. _Fun_. For her next trick, she'd question the honor of the woman who had conceived Grayson and call Eli's mother a fat whore. That was sure to win her just as many points as what she was doing.

"Wait." The word was surprisingly hard to get out, but she managed.

"Just wait. I was—am—distracted. I should have heard you coming." Mariah said, trying to explain away her surprise. She sighed, "What was the question?"

Lori didn't turn around. Instead, the woman tossed her hair over one shoulder and twisted her neck so she could look at Mariah through the corners of thin-slit eyes. The computerized portion of Mariah's thoughts were quick to offer assurances that the hall hadn't actually decreased in temperature, the chill she felt was just a physiological reaction. A completely irrational one, since there was no legitimate reason for her to be afraid of a real human anymore.

But that very irrationality made it all the more valuable. Proof she wasn't entirely removed from real people. Not yet, anyways.

"Simple. What do you plan on doing, and does that involve Grayson or the Legion at all?" Lori asked with a studious politeness that Mariah didn't buy for a second. The courtesy never actually reached her eyes. Somehow, it felt more dangerous than it had when Lori had been behind her in the Castle Brian ready to draw a pistol if she made the wrong move.

"What makes you think I have any plans at all? I barely know what year it is." Mariah said after a moment's hesitation. The eyes narrowed further, and she instantly regretted the attempt at deflection.

"You have a Star League supercomputer in your head and a goddess of death with a timeshare on your body. I think by now you have _multiple_ contingency plans for _every_ scenario you've thought up since we woke you and you found out what year it was."

Mariah didn't swallow at how accurate the accusation was. But she did have to fight down the impulse.

"Terra. I'm going back to Terra. On a ComStar jumpship or on your Legion's. Whichever is available first to get there most directly. After that…" Mariah trailed off with a shrug that suggested she didn't have any idea of what to do after that herself and that it wouldn't involve Lori or the Legion. Which, if things went right, she fully intended it would not. In fact, if there was any way to get them out of the way sooner, she'd take it.

The people around her had a tendency not to last.

Lori nodded, seemingly accepting the partial answer as all she was getting. "That means you're coming with us and we're going to take a hiatus on contracts until we get you to Terra. Gray believes in paying his debts, and he considers you the savior of the Legion…I suppose he's even right on that count."

"But I want to make something clear." The mercenary-woman continued, finally twisting around to fully face Mariah. "Hurt him, and I don't care if you _are_ the mutant offspring of technology and a god, I will find a way to hurt you back. Understood?"

 _Connected: Capolla station B HPG…_

 _Message C*-1R1988O2239M received April 13, 3028. Rebroadcast to—_

 _Trace overridden._

 _Disconnected from HPG Network._

"I understand." Mariah said, the words coming out automatically as her attention was absorbed by the spinning confusion and barely-contained sickness that slammed through her mind. Bile built in the back of her throat and her stomach flipped end-for-end as she was instantly kicked out of the HPG Network. The breakers built into her own mind were probably the only things that kept the sudden removal from causing serious injury—or even her death. The apocalyptic headache that slammed into her forehead was bad enough that she temporarily wished they hadn't worked.

What was that? Nobody in the net should know she existed! Much less how to try and interrupt any of her activities! So what was going on? Ami might have been able to explain it, but—

Lori was saying something. Mariah didn't have any attention to spare for it. Mentally waving away a series of safety warnings, she slammed herself through a quick reconnect process. The headache somehow got even worse in the process, spiraling into the back of her forehead like a drill bit and escalating from 'apocalyptic' to something no language had extreme enough words for.

But she would have to deal with it anyways so she might as well try to get something useful out of it. Perhaps if she was quicker this time? Maybe she needed to punch her way through whatever was hiding the messages next destination from her.

 _Connected: Capolla station B HPG…_

 _Message C*-1R1988O2239M received April 13, 3028. Rebroadcast to—_

 _Trace overridden._

 _Disconnected from HPG Network._

The ceiling of the hallway was an interesting shade of off-grey.

It took Mariah a moment to realize why she was noticing the color of the ceiling.

"You know, there are more healthy ways of exiting a conversation than passing out." Lori said, the woman's face appeared in-place of the ceiling a moment later. Though her voice was light and airy, she wasn't smiling.

"What?" It was, perhaps, the dumbest question she could have asked. But it was the only one Mariah could think of.

"You experienced a syncope." Lori's lips finally moved upwards in an imitation of a smile, but it was empty of actual cheer. It looked more like that of a predator.

"I overexerted myself."

"Right. Of course you did. Can you stand? Walk?" Lori clearly didn't believe the explanation, but apparently had either quit caring or was making a mental tally of suspicious behavior to be brought up later. Mariah suspected the latter.

It was, however, a good question. Mariah tried to raise a leg. Something immediately cramped in her thigh. If she had been standing, it would've dropped her to her knees. The leg hadn't moved more than a few centimeters. Were she not used to worse, the pain would have been worthy of a scream.

"I do not believe so." Mariah said, repeating the process with her other leg only to encounter the same pain.

Lori's sigh could have melted the paint off the walls. "I'll go get Gray. And Eli. And two or three other acolytes then. No sense in someone throwing their back out lifting you. Gray almost did when he and the others loaded you into the hovercraft."

"Just give me a moment. They won't be necessary." Mariah snapped, feeling a surge of white-hot anger at the other woman's comments that she couldn't quite identify the exact source of. It wasn't the way she had said it, that had been friendly enough. But _what_ she'd said seemed rather insulting.

The mercenary shrugged. Stepping almost out of Mariah's vision, she leaned against the wall of the hallway with one leg propped behind her. She stared down, chewing on one corner of her lip. After a few silent seconds, she snorted out a very harsh, very short laugh.

"Amused?" Mariah asked, rolling her eyes up to challenge Lori's.

"Not every day a god overexerts themselves from taking a few steps and has to lay on the floor breathing with a human standing over them." Lori answered immediately.

She should not have asked. The mockery in Lori's voice was almost worse than the pounding in her head.

Mariah shook aside the…embarrassment? And tried to concentrate on what actually mattered. She had to wonder what could possibly force a complete disconnection for her. None of the potential explanations she came up with survived a moment of close scrutiny, but every attempt only solidified how worrying it was. Someone was hiding things from her. That alone might not have been so worrying, but if they were hiding things from her it meant they knew she existed. That was much more terrifying.

She needed to get to Terra as quickly as possible. If that meant taking advantage of the Gray Death Legion instead of ComStar—and dealing with Lori and Grayson's incessant idiocy—she would just have to hope for an uneventful trip. 1 New Message. Access Y/N? Y.

Mariah couldn't conceal her surprise at the contents of the message and the total lack of condemnation within. She couldn't have forgotten. So why?


	7. Chapter 7 - Shocking Blue

**ComStar HPG Compound  
Helmsdown, Helm, Free Worlds League  
17 June 3028**

After slowly rising to her feet, Mariah forced herself to stagger through the hallway of the ComStar building. The last thing on the planet she wanted to do was move, but it would raise too many questions to immediately go back to the room she'd left. Besides, she needed to think.

She didn't end up getting any thinking done. Every step sent a river of pain out from her forehead that rushed through the rest of her body and interfered with the process. The only accomplishment she could list was finding out that ComStar relied on commercial Jumpships to travel to and from Helm, and that the next scheduled ship wouldn't arrive for at least three weeks. Which she only managed to find out because she could delegate the process involved to the computerized portion of her mind.

It didn't help any that Lori insisted on walking right behind her, hands propped on her hips and clearly forcing herself back to the position every time she began to say something. From the way she seemed to hesitate before setting down her feet with each step, she could either have been scared of following or deliberately trying to remain quiet as she did. The former would be unsurprising. The latter ultimately pointless. Though Lori might not realize it.

"Was there something else you wished to speak with me concerning?" Mariah asked.

Lori twitched, and the arms fell from her side only to rise and cross her chest a moment later. She took a long step forward, just enough to become half-obscured in the security-camera Mariah was watching her on by the angle of the hallway and the position of the camera. Mariah turned her head towards Lori so she could maintain an accurate threat assessment of the woman.

"It's _really_ creepy when you do shit like that, y'know?" Lori said, clearly stalling for time with the words.

Mariah nodded. She'd heard practically the exact same sentiment before. Hundreds of years in suspended animation did nothing to soften the words, but at least this time they didn't come from someone she really knew lo—didn't come from mom.

Not that she could blame anyone for the sentiment. Michael Cameron, Gregory Atlas, and a few other long-dead individuals for their responsibility in building the reason for it, of course. But the sentiment itself? Not something she could hold against anyone. It was true, after all. She was creepy.

Mariah tried to speak, but found herself oddly unable to get anything past a painful lump that had developed in the middle of her throat. Another side-effect of being ejected from the HPG system, no doubt.

"What's so important about getting to Terra, anyways? Eli trying to convince you to go back there I could understand. ComStar apparently has some real attachment to you they haven't bothered to tell anyone about. But the Star League's gone. Kerensky's gone. Everything that might have been there for you years ago isn't there anymore. The only thing on the planet is ComStar's headquarters. So why?" Lori asked.

"Grayson mentioned a wedding. One whose guest-list includes the rulers of every nation in the Inner Sphere worthy of the name." Mariah answered, surprising even herself with the honesty of the partial-answer. She still only admitted to herself that another part of it was that the last person in the universe she loved who was still alive was on Earth.

"Let's just leave it at 'they might be necessary'. Eli was not wrong when he said there is more at play here than you can imagine." She continued, turning around and starting back towards her room.

Lori clearly didn't recognize the end of a conversation when she was shown one. "Is this about that black, shadow-stuff that came out of the Precentor? The 'Evil' that 'possessed' him and your nine-woman superhero team that fights it and all that dreck?"

Mariah paused, two different sides of her mind trying to convince the other of how much—or how little—Lori needed to know. Just as in previous instances of the same question coming up, she didn't reach a solid conclusion. Telling them too little seemed to be aggravating them towards refusing to help her. Telling them too much, though, would lose her any help they might be willing to offer. They already didn't want to be tarnished with the image of outlaws for supposedly destroying a city. She could be certain they wouldn't be interested in helping someone who was going to destroy a planet.

"Well. It sounds silly when you say it like that." She said finally, continuing on her way. The headache was slowly getting better, and even the soreness and physical pain that had cropped up after the disconnection was receding. But now there was a heavy, burning sensation in the back of her throat that felt like she was about to puke. She didn't like explaining what was necessary. It made her feel too guilty.

"Yeah? Well imagine how much sillier it sounds to those of us who aren't you." Lori spat back almost immediately. She stepped in front of Mariah, slamming one hand against the wall at chest-level to block her movement.

"I'm done with this. I'm not going to let you string Gray along with it, either. Because he's a good enough person you could, and he damn-sure deserves better than this half-answer, cryptic _bullshit_ you've been giving us ever since you popped out of that tube." Lori said, her hand clenching into a fist.

"So. I'll give you one more chance—As thanks for saving Grayson's life out there yesterday—to answer the question with _less_ _bullshit_ this time."

It wasn't a very real threat considering just how outmatched Lori was. Her fist was utterly inconsequential. Drawing the needler at her hip would take the mercenary longer than it would for Mariah to render her permanently immobilized. The needler itself was of insufficient caliber to cause anything beyond temporary inconvenience unless fired directly into one of her exposed orifices or an eyeball. What Lori said or did, in a very literal sense, didn't matter.

But something more than the words poked at a familiar feeling and ginned up an understanding Mariah couldn't even express properly. The last time she had been threatened, Stephan Amaris had known exactly what to focus his words on and been intent on ensuring his own power. Amaris, though, had already possessed the means to carry out his threat. It had been braggadocio more than anything that had driven him to speak to her. Lori was completely incapable of threatening her, physically or emotionally. The mercenary woman was at a massive disadvantage. But she was trying anyways. Because she didn't want to see someone else hurt.

"Do you know why the Succession Wars have been going on for the last two and a half centuries? Why every time there seemed to be a lull in the conflict, or someone seemed to gain an advantage, it collapsed in on them? Why all this petty squabbling over the decaying ruins of the Star League has amounted to little more than constant death and destruction?" Mariah asked, forcing herself to look the other woman straight in the eyes.

Lori seemed to be surprised at getting any kind of answer, much less a question turned back on her. She blinked.

"It is because We—because I—failed. Amaris' coup should never have been successful. I should have made sure of that. It was this ve—my duty. We were supposed to be the Protectors of the Cameron line. Supposed to keep the Dark away from Terra. Two-hundred and sixty years ago-" Mariah looked away and pushed the other intruder in _her own_ mind to retreat. Saturn was not talkative enough—or accomplished enough in telling lies—to explain things the way they needed to be explained.

" _I_ could not stop Amaris," Mariah almost whispered, a burning in her heart at just how much of an understatement the words were. Not only had she been unable to stop him, she had become his hatchet-woman. "I could barely even stop the Dark that tried to use his coup as a chance to plunge the galaxy into chaos."

By the time she had been free of the damned machine in her head, it had been too late. Amaris' coup had been successful. The Cameron's had been killed. So had—

She clenched a fist as the sensation of decapitating someone with the Glaive came back into her mind.

After failing, she had been alone. Setsuna had disappeared, and Haruka and Michiru had made it clear they were going to side with Kerensky. They hadn't even responded to the distress beacon!

Mariah growled slightly to clear her throat. She was being overdramatic. The beacon hadn't been strong enough to penetrate the mountain of rock above the Castle Brian.

 _Beacon had an excess of energy available to it and transmitted through a series of relays which—_

The beacon hadn't been strong enough to penetrate the mountain of rock. It couldn't have been. They would have come for her if they'd known.

"That's why you were so intent on getting to Kerensky?" Lori asked slowly.

"Yes. I needed his help to stop Amaris and track down the Dark that had driven him." Mariah lied with a nod and a tight smile.

What she had needed were pawns. Soldiers that could retake the command and control facilities in Unity City from Amaris so she could do what had to be done. Even if they had died, so long as they had succeeded…She wouldn't have needed to feel bad about them. She wouldn't have! If they'd succeeded, she could have temporarily destroyed Terra, restarted the Cycle, and everything could have been set right. Their deaths would have been necessary, but temporary!

It might have worked. If only she hadn't killed—If only she hadn't been locked in that damn mountain. Now that she had failed, her choices were much more limited. Setsuna would understand. Setsuna undoubtedly understood already, in fact. But Lori and Gray? They wouldn't.

They would call it genocide. But it was the only way for her to make up for what she had been forced to do. The only way for the one who needed to come back to actually come back. More than that, it was the only way there would be any hope of combatting the Dark for the rest of humanity.

She'd often disagreed with how Neptune and Uranus combatted Daimons. But she'd always understood it. The edges of solar systems were not safe places, and oft under assault by things that life's inherent goodness—and the vigil her second parents subjected themselves to—kept out.

Now, she could more than understand it. She could sympathize with it.

"I needed help then. I still do, now. More help than you and Gray could provide and more than I could live with asking of you even if you could." Mariah admitted finally, trying to force her mind onto the present. "And I need to find out if any of the Great Houses have been suborned by Daimons or servants of the Dark."

She took a breath, in preparation for her next words. She was entirely certain that now the sick feeling in her chest wasn't from the sudden disconnection she'd suffered from the HPG, but from feeding Lori such an inaccurate and self-serving story. But it was the only choice she had. She really did need their help.

Mariah dragged her eyes back to Lori's and let a hint of moisture enter them. It was easier than it should have been.

"Please just get me to Terra?"

Lori rolled her eyes, but the fist she had been holding against the wall dropped. Twisting around, the mercenary waved Mariah forwards.

"Come on, lets get your heavy ass back into something that can support it. You still look like you're two steps from collapsing and I am damn-sure not going to carry you the rest of the way to the room."

Mariah wasn't certain, but she suspected the response was as close as Lori would come to saying yes.

 **Lake Geneva  
Near Geneva, Terra  
20 June 3028**

Rachel Schutz had spent most of the boat ride so far staring at the coastline as it passed by. She'd worked at the HPG message-collection facility in Geneva for only a few months. The prestigious station and her new ranking as an Adept a reward for scoring in the top ten percent on a skills test distributed to thousands of other III-level and above Acolytes in near-earth systems. Consequently, she'd had little time for sightseeing or other 'tourist' activities in the region as she'd thrown herself into her new duties.

The coast was certainly more interesting than the pair of mutes who had shown up outside her apartment that morning to escort her!

She forced down the surge of nervousness that thought brought on and focused on the landscape that was growing further away with every lick of water against the bow of the boat.

Once the site of some of the fiercest fighting outside of Unity City, centuries of ComStar reclamation and repair efforts had reformed the shore of Lake Geneva into something more natural and beautiful. Something that resembled what it had looked like before the Amaris Coup. Carefully tended evergreens were beginning to reach the age where they could be properly described as 'old growth', and the pockmarked scars of battle-damaged soil she'd seen in snippets of ComStar 'before-after' advertising touting the accomplishment were entirely invisible.

The only real evidence of the battle that could still be seen from the lake itself were the handful of mounds of dull earthen works that had once been castles. When the Republican lines had been broken by the SLDF, the defenders had retreated into the centuries-old fortifications to keep fighting. Local rumor insisted that Kerensky himself had ordered the orbital bombardments that had leveled them and scraped the shoreline of all its vegetation, though how historically accurate that was remained a question. Either way, now the piles of dirt were the only legacy of the massive conflict that could be seen. Preserved by ComStar as a memorial to the folly of man.

It was too bad more of the rulers of the Inner Sphere never took the time to see them. Davions, Kuritas, Mariks…They could all stand to recognize how little their perpetual search for personal power accomplished. It was only their own populations and the past achievements of man that suffered. That may have slowed in recent years as the different Houses slowly withdrew from total war as a strategy and settled into their constant state of raid and smash-and-grab, but the trend remained the same. In some ways, it was even more pathetic.

There was a loud series of _whumps_ , and Rachel was pulled out of her thoughts by one of the mutes placing a hand on her shoulder. They'd pulled up against the side of the yacht, and a small rope-and-board ladder had been extended out for them. Her other silent escort was already shimmying his way up, but the one still in the boat with her seemed to be insisting she go first.

Shrugging off the hand, she stepped to the ladder. After a moment of hesitation, she reached down to gather her robes tight around her legs, keeping the bundle of excess material held in one hand. Slowly ascending the ladder, she was careful not to let the bundle drop or her legs to stretch out the bottom of the robe too far. She hadn't exactly been prepared to leave when the two mutes had shown up, and she hadn't been able to put on anything decent with them standing in her apartment staring at her and _refusing to leave_ for even the few moments it would have taken to put on some undergarments.

But one didn't argue when their presence was requested by Precentor ROM. Particularly not when they had found out about the existence of that position only a few months before. She didn't know why she could possibly have attracted such attention, but she wasn't about to argue with it. There was good reason for everything the Order—particularly those members in its military and intelligence arm—did.

She carefully swung herself over the side of the yacht.

"Ah, Adept Rachel Schutz. We are pleased you are here with Us. Apologies for any inconvenience or discomfort you have had on the way out here to meet. Romulus and Remus are not well-known for their courtesy. They can be rude and uncouth at times, but they are exceptional field agents. We needed to be certain you were not followed. Thank you for coming so quickly and without causing a scene."

Rachel's first thought was that the man sitting in front of her did not look like the mental conception of Nicholas Cassnew, head of ROM and general-spy extraordinaire, that she had been told existed. In the short while she had even known of his existence, she had envisioned him in only one of two ways: The hard-jawed military commander in similar vein to the ones the Federated Suns liked to portray the Davions as, or failing that, as the blank-faced gentlemanly-looking man that decades of trivids told her was the mark of a spy.

What she hadn't expected of the head of ROM was someone who looked closer to one of her grandparents. With a broad, though somewhat empty smile plastered onto a grey-bearded face, and old-school eyeglasses of all things hanging halfway down the bridge of his nose, he radiated a friendliness and openness that conflicted terribly with the silence of the bodyguards who now flanked him. She'd heard he refused laser eye surgery, but like any of the dozens of rumors about the virtually unseen man she had always dismissed such an absurd notion. It appeared that in one instance, the rumors had been correct.

Cassnew almost jumped, shuddering slightly in his chair. He shook his head as if he'd just woken up and refocused on Rachel. The formal but semi-lifeless smile he'd worn a moment earlier was replaced by a much brighter one.

"Oh! I'm sorry to leave you standing. Please, take a seat, take a seat. I don't mean to be rude, it's just been such a hectic morning, I'm afraid. I've been running every which direction trying to manage things, and I'm easily distracted at the best of times." He said, waving at a lounge-chair opposite of him.

Rachel wasn't quite sure how to respond to the self-deprecation beyond taking the offered seat. The mere fact she was being apologized to by the second highest-ranking member of ComStar was too overwhelming. That she'd been dragged to see him at all was stunning enough in its own right, but the casual, almost familial, way he spoke conflicted with her mental image too much for her thoughts to keep up. Her annoyance and discomfort over the mute pair's virtual abduction of her disappeared in an instant as she settled into the luxuriously thick padding of the chair.

"No apology needed, Precentor." Rachel heard herself say.

"Nonsense. Of course an apology is needed! And actions count for much more than words, yes? The least I can do for a guest is make them comfortable." Cassnew said, removing the glasses and setting aside the datapad he had been reading. A twinkle entered his eyes, and another small shake went through him as if he was having trouble containing himself to the chair.

He looked towards one of the mutes, "Remus, would you kindly drop down to the galley and make us some coffee—Tea?" Cassnew faltered and looked back to Rachel.

"Tea." Rachel confirmed with a small nod. She wasn't quite sure whether the butterfly-filled knot her stomach twisted itself into was from anxiousness or giddiness at the thought of having _tea_ with the head of ROM.

"Tea." Cassnew repeated to Remus. He looked at his watch, "And biscuits. And…In fact, just make a light breakfast for two if you would. I do not believe Adept Schutz has had a meal as of yet this morning and I _know_ I haven't."

The mute nodded and began towards the interior of the yacht.

She was having _tea_ and _breakfast_ with the head of ROM, who now not only looked like one of her grandparents but was behaving like one of them. Nobody was going to believe it. She probably wouldn't even be able to tell anybody about it. But even if she could nobody would believe it!

She couldn't quite believe it, herself. If she blinked too hard she might just wake up in her apartment, the whole day so far the result of little more than an overactive imagination. She might be stationed on Terra, but she wasn't _that_ important.

She blinked. Cassnew remained exactly where he was and didn't mysteriously transform into the ceiling of her apartment.

"Um." Rachel said, disbelief warring with her desire to ask every question that had been bouncing around in her head since she'd been hurried out of her room by Romulus and Remus—now with the additional question of what 'Romulus' and 'Remus' were. They sounded vaguely familiar, and she was certain they were codenames of some kind, but she couldn't quite place whether they were historical, mythological, or literary.

She made a mental note to check the names later. There were bigger concerns at the moment. Like not sticking her foot in her mouth front of a man who still outranked her by entire orders of magnitude. Judging by the patient look he was giving her, she'd already managed to do that.

"I'm sure you have questions." Cassnew said, leaning forwards in his chair to rest his elbows on his knees. "And perhaps fears?"

Rachel tried not to, but jumped halfway out of her seat anyways. The charge was too accurate for her not to react to it. She blushed and began to offer an apology.

"I see ROM still has the same reputation it did when I was your age." He said with a slight chuckle, waving one hand towards the side of the boat. "Please, relax. You're not under suspicion of anything. We're merely trying to investigate a matter you might have knowledge of."

"H-However I can help, Precentor." Rachel said, some of the butterflies leaving her stomach alongside the words. A few of the more persistent ones remained behind. Even having knowledge of others consorting with Daimons could be a capital offense to ROM if unreported. She wracked her mind, but couldn't identify anyone she knew who might be of interest to ROM.

"Thank you. In that case, let's get right into it! I've always hated trying to _work_ while a meal was in front of me, and this shouldn't take long." He said, shifting his weight left and right in his chair and crossing one leg over a knee.

"That datapad has a security video on it. Would you mind taking a look at it?" Cassnew asked in the next instant, pointing towards the pad he'd dropped when she'd first staggered her way onto the boat.

Rachel nodded and grabbed the device. It was lighter than any of the ones she'd ever used before, and when she tapped it to life it was immediately ready to use instead of delaying her by going through a half-dozen loading and standby screens. It seemed that rank did have some benefits!

The video that was already queued on the pad didn't seem like it deserved the attention of a ROM operative, much less Precentor ROM himself. The scroll of numbers in the corner told her it was from a mere two days prior, and the sight of herself manning the desk settled where the video was taken quite easily. The only mystery was why she was being questioned about it at all.

"Do you recognize the woman who shows up at timestamp three?"

Rachel slid the video forward to the appropriate spot. She was clearly speaking to a middle-aged woman with long, dark hair in the video. Which didn't narrow it down much at all. What was a bit less common was how she had to show the woman into a private booth and then a few moments later direct her through its use—something she only needed to do a few times a day on Terra. Using ComStar was second-nature for most people on the planet, so the handful of tourists and travelers who didn't know exactly what to do and how to do it always stood out.

"Missus…What was her name?" Rachel mumbled, tilting her head and trying to remember the specifics of the pointless conversation from two days before. Cassnew motioned for her to go on from his seat, but not even his urging could spur her brain into remembering any more clearly.

"I do recognize her." Rachel continued, stalling for time. Was it Moreau? It had been close to that, but less FedSunish. Something like 'Mino'? It had been alliterative, she remembered that much. 'Missus Me-something'?

"Meiou." Rachel finally settled on, after mentally running through a half-dozen combinations. "Her name was Meiou."

"And did you notice anything odd about her? Did she say what she was doing? Any details you can provide would be helpful, no matter how pointless they might seem" Cassnew prodded, leaning forward once again.

Rachel pushed herself into the backrest of her chair, once again embarrassingly aware of how much she was outranked by the man opposite of her. The slight snap that had entered his words didn't help matters. Though the smile and friendliness were still there, she could suddenly understand why Cassnew would be in his position. Any similarity between him and a grandfatherly figure melted away when he started into active questioning.

"Ah, she mentioned the Free Worlds League?" Rachel said, latching onto the first part of the conversation she could remember. "She said she needed to send a message to a sister there, but she didn't recognize our equipment and needed me to point out how our screens and software worked."

"Did you see where in the League she was sending the message? What it said? Who the listed recipient was?"

"I—No. She asked almost right after she sat down and hadn't entered anything into the system yet. I didn't think to spy on her like that." Rachel said, panic rising once again as she tried to defend what seemed like perfectly reasonable acts on her part.

"No reason you should have." Cassnew said, though the words were contradicted by a growl of anger underneath them.

"Precentor, couldn't you just pull the message logs?" Rachel added, willing to reach for any possible lifeline that made sense. She didn't care if it sounded like she was questioning a superior, it removed the microscopic focus of responsibility from herself.

"We already have. The listing we have in the system for the time she was there has no final destination listed, a nonsensical paragraph of Latin as the body of the message, and was supposedly sent from one Ricardo Hunt, originally of Tharkad." Cassnew said, shaking his head sadly. Thankfully, the disappointment drove him back into his chair and calmed the fire in his eyes he had focused on her a moment earlier.

"Oh. The Immortal Warrior actor." Rachel said, mimicking the older man's disappointment but feeling a deep sense of wrongness as she did. People sending HPG messages under pseudonyms was nothing new, but ComStar not knowing who it _actually_ was behind the message was entirely unprecedented. She would never have even guessed it was possible a few moments before.

No wonder Cassnew was so concerned. Even if it was an inconsequential matter in detail, the mere fact that someone had managed to one-up ComStar's intelligence arm was a threat. What if Daimons or other servants of the Dark used those kinds of insecurities in the system to communicate or coordinate? What if they already were?

What if that woman had been a vessel for them?

Cassnew waved over the other mute—Romulus—and whispered something in the man's ear before shooing him away. The Precentor of ROM pushed himself back in his chair, and in moments seemed to age decades and once again take on the appearance of a friendly grandfather. He didn't say anything, but Rachel could almost feel a sense of frustration radiating off of him.

"I'm sorry I can't be more helpful, Precentor. There just didn't seem to be anything strange about her." She said, trying to fill the uncomfortable silence that was beginning to develop.

Cassnew brushed aside the apology, "No need to be sorry, child. It's not your fault. Much as I'd like to have every adept who serves on Terra and the surrounding systems trained in the basics of counterintelligence work, it would be thoroughly impractical. Besides, we know more now than we did before meeting with you. This gives us something to go off of, even if it is just another alias. That's more than my dedicated agents have been able to track down about this 'Meiou' character. Thank you."

Rachel, despite her best efforts in fighting it down, blushed at the thanks. It didn't matter that it was roundabout and it didn't matter that it was preceded by a backhanded insult directed at her and every other adept she worked alongside. It was a sincere moment of appreciation from the second most powerful man in ComStar—and thus the Inner Sphere—for her entire life.

She provided a few more even more minor details after that, but the bulk of the questioning seemed to be done. Even Cassnew seemed to realize that halfway through the rest of the conversation, as he began to inquire more about much more minor and utterly unrelated matters at the facility she worked at.

She was half-surprised when he took a bit of an interest to the technical glitches she'd been tracking down at the facility. As it turned out, Cassnew had once been on the technical track through the Order, before like her, transitioning into the administrative side of things. The shared experience and the much less important topic made their conversation much lighter, even after Romulus returned with a tray of food and set about with his usual creepy hovering.

"You have not asked what any of this is about." Cassnew said, taking a sip of his tea.

Rachel froze mid-bite, and carefully set the toast down. She found herself unable to meet the older man's eyes, and instead distracted herself by looking over the waters of Lake Geneva.

How was she supposed to respond to that? How would she be expected to respond to it? The platitudes she'd memorized didn't seem appropriately personal as an answer, especially to someone who knew what all those platitudes were already.

"And I won't." She finally said, draining the last remaining bit of her own tea to emphasize the words.

Cassnew nodded, "A good answer. It is precisely the one that is expected of a proper ComStar official. Unfortunately, Adept Schutz, some of your superiors are not as devoted to your orders structures as you are. We are sorry."

Something squeezed around her throat. Pushed against her esophagus. Squirmed its way downwards and probed in different directions. She heard as much as felt her spine pop as whatever-it-was began to push in the other direction.

"Well. My Vessel is sorry. If I were capable of the feeling, I may be as well."

Rachel twisted her head around so she could puke against the deck rather than into the air. When had she fallen? She was on the deck of the ship now, reaching for the table, for Cassnew, for the edge of the boat, for _anything_ that she might be able to latch onto. Nothing was close enough and _everything hurt_.

It hurt so much.

It hurt. It hurt, it hurt, it hurt. It hurt it hurt it hurt it hurt it hurt it hurt it—

The dual being that was known as Nicholas Cassnew by most flinched as 'Romulus' executed the hapless Sentient One mid-transformation. The shackled lesser one wasted no time in lifting the body and throwing it overboard, and then turned its attention to cleaning up.

His vessel's lips twisted into a frown. He was displeased seeing even lesser ones put to such menial and degrading purpose, especially when they were doing so in front of Him solely so one of the Sentient Ones could demonstrate its authority over Him. It would have been better if the shackled lesser one didn't exist at all. Its existence itself was wrong.

"That was an unnecessary usage of a seed." He said. He assumed that the woman who had been observing from below would be walking onto the deck now that the consequences of her handiwork were removed. It might be incorrect to do so, and if so he would find out very soon. But it was just like her to indulge in such a—dramatic? Was that the word? Yes. Dramatic—display. She took after His master far too much.

A moment later, His assumption was proven correct.

"When I desire to hear your opinion, I shall ask for it." The Sentient One female snapped as she walked by him and dropped into the seat which moments before had been occupied by Rachel Schutz. "No seed was wasted at all. The Mistress was curious if the young adept would be able to merge with it."

"She knows it would not work. You should know such as well." He said, feeling a bubble of…Was it anger? After so long interacting with the vessel, He was beginning to get minor reflections of the Sentient One's emotions. But he still had difficulty attaching the feelings to the esoteric definitions of them that the Sentient Ones produced.

"I _assumed_ it would not work. But unlike your kind, we humans are willing to put assumptions to the test. The Mistress wanted me to specifically point out that she's also willing to put her assumptions about who—and what—remains useful to the test as well. Shall I inform her that you understand, 'Nicholas Cassnew'?" The Sentient One female said.

He bowed slightly in his seat. After numerous explanations, he was able to discern when his master or her puppets were making use of the veiled threats and 'innuendo' she so liked to use to make her point.

"I understand."

Even after the puppet's departure He was inexplicably…angry…for the rest of the day.


	8. Chapter 8 - Goddess on the Mountaintop

**Vermillion Pass  
Helm, Free Worlds League  
18 June, 3028**

Mariah stared at the contrail of flame and smoke the dropship _Phobos_ left in the air as it rose.

A thousand years before and millions of miles away, in a posh penthouse apartment in downtown Tokyo, she had watched on television as a much smaller, much more delicate craft called the _Columbia_ performed the same maneuver. If not for the light wind fluttering into her hair, she almost could have imagined she was still there. Could almost regain that sense of serenity that had graced her when the universe itself was opening to humanity and she knew her place within it.

A thousand years. There hadn't been much serenity for her or any of the Others in any of them. Perhaps if she had ever had just a few months to step back and see what was going on, she might have been able to do something to prevent the eventual breakdown. Or at least been able to recognize what Amaris was setting up before he pulled the rug out from underneath them all. But she'd never had time to do such a thing. She had needed to run from one crisis to another as humanity exploded across the stars and uncovered new horrors that had to be dealt with. Horrors that Usagi insisted people didn't have to know about. That she insisted they weren't ready to know about.

None of them had considered that Usagi might have been wrong. Or that the handful of humans she had graced with knowledge of the Dark to help them fight it would end up corrupted by it. There was a dark kind of humor to it, really. Usagi's Star League had fallen the same way Selene's Moon Kingdom had. For eerily similar reasons.

Were they all condemned to just play out the same charade forever? Had anything she'd done actually mattered?

Mariah shook her head and refocused on the dropship fading into the sky. At least humanity could answer that question in the affirmative. She had seen countless variations on the same design of massive ship rise and fall in atmosphere, dock with space-stations, and venture through the void alone. She had seen the interiors of ships that had been fed on by Daimons, the twisted chassis' of those that Youma left behind, and ones that had suffered every calamity in-between. But through it all, the mysterious disappearances and 'misjumps', humanity kept flying the vulnerable transports into space. That hardheadedness and desire to _build_ had won them a universe that rightly belonged to them instead of to Her kind.

She shifted the Vessel's center of gravity so She could incline the head further back and watch through 'enhanced imaging' as the dropship exited the atmosphere. She had still not grown tired of seeing the Sentient Ones spacefaring constructs work. There was just _something_ about them. An unspeakable and undefinable poetry to their rise as they fought off gravity and freed themselves from the worlds they lived on. Those constructs, more than anything else, were the symbols of the Sentient Ones stretching themselves out. They saw the dangers and horrors of the universe arrayed against them and, instead of retreating into obscurity as so many other Sentient races had, leapt into it with both eyes open and _dared_ something bad to happen.

She could not determine whether their infighting and bickering amongst themselves made that fact more impressive or simply exasperating. It wasn't enough that they courted disaster from Her kind, they heaped it on each other. Constant warfare had transformed their spacefaring vessels from typical sights to rarefied gems that proved the Sentient Ones still had a grip on the stars. Back in the day of the Central Authority from Terra, a pair of dropships would have been exceedingly unimpressive. Now, the 'Gray Death Legion' was considered a prospering 'business' to have such a wealth at their disposal.

She was still trying to come to understand the latter detail. She had thought She had understood the idea of 'business', but conflict as a commodity seemed dreadfully confusing. The Vessel was of little help explaining it to Her though, as even the Vessel was discomfited and disturbed by it. So perhaps it was an excusable byproduct of the Central Authority's collapse. Without Guardians, the Sentient Ones would need some other group willing to die to protect them. It was just another oddity that members of the species would apparently volunteer for such duty, much less make it into a money-making enterprise.

"Supergirl! Hey, supergirl? Base to supergirl, do you read me?"

She blinked and realized that the One called Lori was waving a hand in front of Her.

"Yes?"

Lori huffed, as if she'd expected more of a reply. When she spoke, it was with the bored cadence of someone who was repeating themselves. Perhaps even for the third or fourth time, judging by the heavy sighs she used to punctuate the words. That was usually what such melodramatically rehearsed actions represented with Sentient Ones, anyways.

"We're departing. Like, right _now_. Before the Free Worlders get any ideas of overwhelming _Deimos_ when it's the only one on the ground. Are you going to come, or have you decided to stick around and stare at the air?"

She had the vessel turn and focus on the One called Lori. Specifically on the jumpsuit the Sentient One had changed into when they'd arrived back at the dropship. There was something oddly comforting about the skulls-head emblem the 'Gray Death Legion' used as its heraldry on all its official clothing. If nothing else, these Sentient Ones embraced their status!

Mariah jerked her mind back and frowned. There were times she seriously questioned the sanity of the universe she lived in, when the rambling and only half-coherent thoughts of Saturn made as much sense as reality itself.

Mariah blinked away the enhanced imaging she had been watching the other dropship rise with and nodded.

"My apologies. Please, lead on." She said, gesturing back towards the ramp into the belly of the dropship. She fell into step behind Lori, following the mercenary into the ship and up a utility ladder.

"I did not see any of your subordinates outside. Have those that wanted to already left?" She asked, not entirely sure why. Perhaps it was an attempt to be friendly?

Lori paused on the ladder, and glanced over one shoulder at her for a moment before continuing up it. She didn't respond immediately. Instead preferring to put it off until they both reached the top.

"Nobody took him up on it, actually." She said, offering Mariah a hand. It was unnecessary, but the gesture was appreciated. Not wanting to be rude, Mariah let herself take advantage of the hand and pull herself onto the gangplank at the edge of the dropship's 'Mech bay.

"Oh." Mariah said. It contributed nothing, but she wasn't sure how else to respond. She would have expected a host of mercenaries to jump at the chance Eli had offered of a full pardon from ComStar if they joined the order.

"Helm was where Gray was going to permanently station the unit. Some of us lost families and loved ones that they'd brought here before any of...this. There's nothing left for them _here_ now. Of course they'll stick with us. When you lose your family, you'll reach out for any source of familiarity you can find for comfort. However stupid or destructive it might be."

Something about Lori's voice took on an intensely personal tone as she ended. Mariah shifted her weight and was suddenly very glad the woman wasn't looking at her. She had a point, after all.

"All any of us have left is the Legion. And each other, I suppose. 'Home is the regiment'." Lori finished, tossing hair over one shoulder with a shake of her head.

Her entire demeanor returned to the typical gruff and dangerous vibe she typically radiated as if a switch had been flipped. She waved Mariah forward and, without checking to see if she was following, ducked through the hatch that led to quarters.

"We can't complain though. 'Stupid' and 'destructive' are just different words for 'mercenary', don't'cha'know. Once we drop you off on Terra, we can go pirate and set up some nice fief for ourselves in the Periphery. If I can convince Gray to go for it, anyways. I always thought I'd look good in a bunch of leather."

 **Warrior House Lu Sann training temple  
Saint Loris, Capellan Confederation  
20 June 3028**

Thunder. _Thunder_. Thunder!

Standing on the edge of an abyss, thunder and lightning responded to her every whim and command. Holding her arms _that_ way brought a crashing _boom_ in the sky. Throwing them the other direction inspired a another _boom_ , but this time accompanied by the telltale flash of lightning. She was bending the force of the storm itself to her will! Channeling the blue-white energies of nature down to her hands from a coal-black sky.

It was liberating, being at the center of the storm. No. Not only that, it was _comfortable_. Because she knew it was exactly where she wanted to be. Where she needed to be. She held both arms up to the sky and rejoiced as the energies coalesced around her fists. After an instants appreciation of the coursing _power_ it represented, she released it on her target.

Even in her dreams, she was careful to try and avoid taking any notice of who exactly that target was. The Maskirovka could not intrude on dreams, but even subconscious musings might arise at inopportune moments in more conscious displays that would be harder to hide. The target certainly wasn't the 'approved' Davion or Free Worlds League individual that dreams of this nature were supposed to contain, she could tell that much by unclipped fingernails and the elaborate _jiasha_ he wore—

 _Darn_. She'd noticed exactly who the target was. Again.

The crackling explosion from the energies she'd controlled slowly morphed itself into the steady drumbeat of rain against stone as the dream faded away. A few breaths later, just as she was beginning to feel sleep coming back on, a brilliant flash of light imprinted itself onto her eyelids. It was almost immediately followed by the sharp crack of thunder.

It was storming. Again.

It never seemed to stop storming on Saint Loris. Not this far north of the equator, anyways. There were still occasionally meteorologists from the nearby Philotechnique Institute that insisted the constant flux of thunderstorms and rain shouldn't be possible, but everyone had long-since learned to ignore them in the face of the cold and wet reality. Whether it was some trick of the planet's rotation, some oddity in its terraforming that had been forgotten or lost during the Succession Wars, or some change that had occurred over time, the hard truth was that it never stopped storming on Saint Loris.

There was another flash of lightning, and Makoto groaned at the false shadow the bolt formed on the insides of her eyelids. Why was it that every day she just wanted to catch a few more moments of sleep, nature refused to cooperate?

Eyes shooting open, Makoto rolled slightly in the mound of blankets she had cocooned herself in on top of the _kang_ so she could bring the clock at the edge of the concrete block into view. If she really wanted to she could go to sleep for another fifteen or twenty minutes. Or, more accurately, she could try to go to sleep for another fifteen or twenty minutes and be constantly interrupted by the booming trumpets and lightshow being played by the angry god in the sky.

She fought down a small sigh. She was already awake.

Despite the energetic thought, she stared at the holographic display of the time instead of actually getting up. It had been an odd dream. Somewhat similar to ones she'd had before. But at the same time much more visceral.

She had a reasonable expectation of what had brought it on, besides just the typical weather. Constantly having to watch the temple's sole _Thunderbolt_ piloted by a succession of pilots less competent than her was bad enough. Having to be their target practice in the prototype _Raven_ the temple had been burdened with was driving her to near-madness.

It might have been tolerable if the perpetually-active 'ECM' on the light 'Mech was worth anything. Or if it didn't have as much effect on her own targeting systems as her opponents. Or if she didn't have to contort herself into a ball to fit 170 centimeters into a cockpit designed for less than that. Or if it was forty or fifty tons heavier, more well-armed and armored, and not produced by incompetent _boobs_.

As it was, over the last two-dozen sparring matches between herself and the newest inductees into the House's Mechwarrior training cadre, she hadn't won a _single one_. Primarily because she hadn't been able to hit them. It was no wonder she was fantasizing about controlling lightning and thunder! She could think of nothing she wanted more than the chance to operate the _Thunderbolt_ for a change. Something with weapons that might work and a cockpit she might fit inside and something to attack with that wasn't the 'Mech sized equivelant of a popgun!

Well, that wasn't quite true. She could think of a number of things she wanted more than that. But a chance to pilot the _Thunderbolt_ was the semi-attainable one. They'd already said her memory wasn't coming back, and nobody ever came back from misjumps so her parents were—

She nuzzled herself deeper into the warmth and comfort of the blankets for a few more seconds, then threw them off in one swift motion to be rid of the temptation once and for all. Her room was, unsurprisingly, very _brisk_ and the heavy, humid air that floated in unhindered through the opening in the stone that served as a window only made it worse. It was almost enough to make her wish for a pair of the Warrior House's undergarments. But she'd take temporary cold in the morning over perpetual itchiness and discomfort any day.

Besides, she had trouble fitting into any of the ones meant to go over her chest. Stupid flat-chested Capellan women who made the House's garb had _no idea_ how to measure or cut for anyone with a bust. Even when they were explicitly asked to. She always ended up with cup sizes that were painfully small or bands that were too short. She wasn't entirely convinced they weren't doing it on purpose either. Possibly out of spite. Or possibly because of orders from Samsonov. It would be the kind of petty vengeance he'd heap upon her.

Throwing herself to her feet with one leg, Makoto danced across the freezing-cold stone floor. Pausing in front of the clothing-rack on the other side of the small room, she kept her feet moving while her hands plucked the necessary items off of it. The _jiasha_ off the top hook came first, followed by the cloth boxers and socks that hung below it. The illicit, FedSun-made bra she kept hidden underneath all of it was the last article of clothing to be grabbed, and old habit made her eyes scan around the room.

It was a somewhat paranoid and unnecessary measure now that she had a private room. But when she'd been bunked alongside a mass of other Initiates it had been a vital security measure. There would have been plenty of them who would have turned her in merely for the reward. Even more who would have lost what little respect—fear, really—they had for her at the sight of the floral patterns that swirled and dived around the fabric that covered the cups.

Still keeping each feet on the ground for only a few seconds at a time, Makoto floated back to the warmth of the _kang_ and the safety from prying-eyes of the covers to dress. The entire process took only a few seconds, but she still developed a slight chill from it.

She shrugged into the technically-illegal bra first. Though the smugglers hadn't bothered cutting off the 'Made on Mentasta, Federated Suns' tag that once hung on the side, she had. But the fabric itself was damning enough evidence, obviously not made on Saint Loris as the Chancellor's Declaration of Total War required. Whether it 'profited the Davion enemy' or 'consumed strategic transportation space on Capellan shipping' was irrelevant in terms of the punishment she'd face if caught with it. Both were the acts of enemies of the State.

It wasn't that she enjoyed being an enemy of the State. She had tried wearing the Saint Loris-made chest-compressing wraps the Warrior House had, reluctantly, provided her. Maybe she hadn't gotten it right, but there had been _chafing_. A world of chafing she had no desire to risk again. She would replace the bra with one she made herself, eventually. When she had mastered the thrice-cursed French seams and the infinitely more difficult art of keeping an underwire in place. But for now it was necessary.

It also helped that, unlike the drab monotones the rest of her clothing was in, the bra was wonderfully _cute._ Perhaps best of all, the red rose-petal pattern that the fabric had on it matched her earrings. She still hadn't found any cloth like it that she could use in her own, and she'd been looking forever. Making it would take forever and a day. In the end, did it really matter that its source was across the border?

But that wasn't a thought she was supposed to have. Or, at least, not one she was supposed to admit to. It was too 'wasteful' and unnecessary. Which was silly.

Hooking the back together, Makoto began the process of folding herself into the much more House and Confederation-approved clothing she had. The boxers and the socks came first, followed by the _jiasha_. The robes were rough-spun, prone to unraveling, and itchy, made by hand by initiates in their youngest years when they were rotated through a brief course on self-sufficiency. But they had the upside of being extremely thick. Not even the chill winds that springtime on Saint Loris brought to the air could penetrate the thick layers of cloth.

For not the first time, she missed the robes that she had made years before. She had poured her heart and soul into that _jiasha,_ intent on proving with every thread that the confidence the Confederation showed in her by allowing her into a Warrior House was not ill-placed. Intent on making something she could be proud of. It had been thrown into a pile alongside the rest and eventually handed-out to another initiate three years her senior to replace one he had damaged beyond repair. That, she knew, had not been the beginning of her indulgence in thoughts and items the Maskirovka wouldn't be pleased by. But it had inflamed them beyond the quiet and obscure acts she'd practiced before.

She used the next few moments checking the plants around her room and pushing the old anger aside. Most of the flowers were still suitably watered and situated from her time rearranging them the previous evening, but it never hurt to check.

Most didn't require any special attention on her part. But the hibiscus on the mantle had gotten a lot of water from the rains during the night. So much that her thumb came up coated in black dirt after she pushed it in. The storm had probably been a bit too much. She rotated it out of the exposed position. It would undoubtedly need to be watered again by the early-afternoon, but for now it was on the verge of being waterlogged. She would check it again after she had breakfast and performed the morning exercises.

Makoto hugged her robes closer around her as she slipped into her sandals and took the first steps out of the relative sanctuary of the alcove that served as her 'room'. The hallway was a terrible funnel for the wind, steering it around the edges of the massive stone training grounds and through a number of spillways in an elaborate but utterly unnecessary manner. Sure enough, the moment she stepped out there was a whole-body press of cool air against her that caught loose hair and sent it waving to her side. Eyes closed to appreciate the breeze, Makoto curled the runaway hair into a manageable ponytail and secured it.

Sifu Clark insisted that the arrangement of the temple 'in harmony' with the wind instead of 'opposing' it was a demonstration of _feng shui_ that she ought to dwell on and apply to her own life. She had heeded the advice and devoted some time during meditation to thinking about the phenomenon. She had come to the conclusion that a much better way to situate buildings was so that they blocked the wind from their occupants. She enjoyed it, even found excuses to spend time in the perpetual winds the mountaintop was beset by, but none of the other initiates did. The point of shelter was to provide comfort for those protected by it, not to purposefully discomfort them.

As for applying it to her own life? She had come to the conclusion that if she had been the one who built the temple, she'd have made it so it actually protected those within from the elements.

She'd kept that thought to herself, though. Sifu Clark would've been disappointed with her lack of spiritual understanding, and she hated to disappoint the cheerful middle-aged man. He always got this lip-pursed frown on his face and clearly took it as a personal failing whenever she disappointed him.

The trip through the hallway and into the main hall of the temple was short and uneventful.

Breakfast was also a blessedly dull affair. Something she wished could be said of every morning meal. Sometimes, usually when the newest Initiates had arrived, the new arrivals were challenged to steal food from her or 'accidentally' knock food off of her plate. It was a juvenile idea of a prank, but one she'd learned to largely avoid. If they had to cross a wide-open, empty space to get to her, they always chickened out before trying anything. Which spared her their 'pranks' even on days when any of them would try it. Today, there wasn't even any who tried to approach her.

Which was fine by her. Just fine. It made for less trouble.

Makoto stabbed a fork into the sausage on her plate, wincing slightly as the tine skittered against the porcelain and scraped off the top layer of the enamel. Ignoring the handful of stares the screech attracted from nearby tables, she moved her attention to the bowl of porridge and fruit she'd used to disguise a second helping of sausage she had sneaked out of its tray when no one else had been looking. Portions weren't restricted at all inside the temple, but there was still an unspoken expectation for how much was 'proper' to take.

She had learned quickly that the 'proper' amount left her hungry. After an extended period of limiting herself to it that had ended with a trip to the infirmary and a lecture from Sifu Clark, she had also learned that it was outright _not enough_ for her. But there was no reason to flaunt that difference. Or even let it be noticeable. That typically lead to arguments about how proper her even being a member of the House was. Arguments that escalated to fights. Fights that she didn't lose, but that only won her a more fearsome reputation and the disappointment of Sifu Clark.

Makoto took a sip of tea to calm her thoughts, and tried not to wince. It was dull and flavorless. Whoever had been in charge of making it hadn't let it steep long enough. Or maybe just let it boil continuously. It hung in the back of her throat with an acidic aftertaste that was more painful than pleasant.

With a sigh to try and calm her thoughts, she set to eating her food as quickly as she comfortably could. The food, at least, she was used to tasting dull and flavorless whenever any of the other initiates cooked. Unlike her, they disdained the 'peasant work' the House insisted they participate in. Something as simple as cooking a piece of meat to a level below 'charbroiled' was far beyond most of them.

Ignoring the taste as much as she could, she emptied the plate. With that necessary chore accomplished, she used the tea for the only thing it was good for. It washed the crumbs from her mouth so they wouldn't bother her the remainder of the day.

When she returned her utensils, she declined the insincere offers from a half-dozen members of the kitchen help to rinse them for her. Letting them do it would only invite a poorly-done job, disease, and attract more unnecessary attention for the 'foreign girl'. Besides, it was the polite thing to do. They had cooked for her, no matter how poorly.

Makoto exited the breakfast-hall with as little fanfare as she had entered, and a frown came to her face at the conversation and laughter she left behind. It would have been nice, but it was unnecessary. The Confederation was all about giving up unnecessary luxuries in service of the greater good of the state, wasn't it?

Of course, the Confederation also insisted that the cloth around her chest underneath the _jiasha_ was an 'unnecessary luxury' as well that she should go without for no good reason. So…

Makoto paused, frowned, and brought one hand to rub at her tummy as she again felt the familiar tug at its center. She couldn't tell if the discomfort was actually physical, or just a product of her own mind. Perhaps her stomach was rebelling at the sight and taste of the food she'd gulped down? Or perhaps she really was coming down with something? Perhaps it was all in her head?

She stomped forwards, forcing her hand to her side and trying to ignore the pangs of _something_ that wasn't hunger or sickness in her gut. She was frustrated more than anything, that's what it was. The last few days she'd been uncomfortable, confused, and she couldn't even place why. Of course piling nasty food on top of that was going to cause trouble. But it was nothing some willpower couldn't fix.

By the time she reached the windswept expanse of dirt sparring circles arrayed on the north side of the Temple her palms were almost bleeding where her nails had been digging into them. From the way the other initiates avoided catching her eye, her frown had not improved much either. None intruded on her when she claimed one of the circles as her own.

It meant she didn't have to contend with any of the newer entrants into the House challenging her to a match so they could prove themselves. Any other day, she might have taken that as a blessing. But today? Today she rather wanted to try and silence her confusion underneath the rapid decision-making a sparring match required.

A form would have to do.

Facing against the wind, she ignored the droplets of rain that pelted into her face and the boom-crack of thunder receding in the distance that tried to distract her attention every few moments. She dropped into a horseriding stance. Her feet sank a short ways into the still-moist ground, sending small blobs of mountain mud onto the edges of her toes the sandals left uncovered. She would have to keep her footwork in mind. Otherwise she could fall and turn an ankle.

She hadn't even made it four moves into the practice-set before she was interrupted.

"Too _forced_ , Initiate Kino. You are telegraphing every move you make, spending too long thinking about the movements rather than engaged in them. Think less about the mere act of punching or kicking and more about the _goal_ you are fighting towards with them."

She didn't bother to hide the eye roll the comment brought on. Much as she liked Sifu Clark, she couldn't stand it when he started preaching the Zen bullshit. Which was an unpopular-enough perspective it probably gave every other member of the House a good reason to avoid her. But hell with it. Mystical mumbo-jumbo hadn't saved her parents and it hadn't saved the Confederation. They could keep it. She would focus on things that actually _worked_.

"And what would that be?" She growled through clenched teeth, intent on trying to put the man off-balance and leave him the one without an answer for a change. She continued the form and pushed herself into a snapping high-kick and the leg-break that followed it up.

Clark finally came into view, and the blank stare on his face was as revealing as a fit of giggles would have been for anyone else. Much as she'd expected, her question didn't even faze him. He looked like he'd been expecting it.

"I cannot answer for you." He whispered, the friendly cant of his face softening the harsh-sounding words to the point that she wasn't certain whether or not they were an insult.

His voice picked up a level, clearly meant to carry to the other initiates now. "Remember, initiates! One's goal in any martial endeavor is specific to the mission the Confederation sees fit to send you on. That goal should be what every movement of your body, every thought in your mind, every breath itself, is in service towards accomplishing!"

"Yes, _sifu_!"

Makoto didn't join the chorus of voices in agreeing with the statement, even as she moved her mouth in time with everyone else. She was growing increasingly certain that she had no need to be concerned with any missions the Confederacy would send her on. She was obviously never going to leave the temple grounds.

It felt like she'd been there forever! Spinning her wheels, watching over plants, and assisting Clark and the other sifus in training new initiates instead of doing anything more productive or valuable. It felt like she was wasting time when she should be doing something _more_.

She didn't know what, but there had to be something.

"Initiate Kino will oversee your morning exercises!" Clark yelled.

Makoto jerked at the familiar announcement, and immediately straightened her shoulders.

"Initiate Kino? The students are yours." Clark said formally, offering her a slight bow. "When the morning routine is finished, come see myself and Master Samsonov."

She furiously stomped down the flutter of excitement those words caused in her stomach, and nodded her understanding to Sifu Clark. Leading the morning exercises was an honor typically reserved for the last day an initiate who was being forwarded to actual service remained at the temple.

Beyond that, she could recall going before Samsonov only once before. That he wanted to see her with Clark _and_ she was being given the honor of leading could only mean that this was her last session with the other initiates. The House was going to assign her to an actual duty! Maybe she could even hope for a position in a 'Mech unit? Perhaps not as an _actual_ Mechwarrior, but even to be assigned to the role of an infantryman in one of the House's battalions would be an honor.

For the first time she could remember, she felt as if that wasn't what she wanted. But she could not reason why.

"Initiates! On the ground!" Makoto screamed, turning in place so she could look over the training field for an instant. It was a strangely surreal experience, looking down on them from in front. She wasn't entirely sure she liked it.

She buried whatever personal feeling she might have on the matter and did as she had been trained, calling out exercises for the other trainees to carry out and counting them through the forms of a _taolu_. All the while ignoring the sinking feeling in her breast.

This was her last day at the temple. Where would she be going? What would she be doing? They would expect her to fight— _to kill._

She ended the morning exercises five minutes early.

"Initiate Kino? Kneel."

The voice, male and unquestionably _old_ , came from one of a half-dozen hidden alcoves somewhere in front of her, and Makoto obeyed. In the dimly-lit bowels of the temple, the way the stone columns and pillars around her distorted the sound made it almost impossible to judge the distance the words were being spoken from. Their source might be in the dark alcove only a few meters before her or on the other side of the room. They may even be in an entirely separate room.

But that was part of the final initiation. Another symbol in a temple steeped in such things, as endlessly explained to her by _Sifu_ Clark. Not seeing the master of the temple reflected the uncertainties of her future as a warrior. Obedience here, despite that lack of knowledge, reflected a future dedicated to the protection of the Celestial Majesty, the Chancellor of the Capellan Confederation—and the one who would succeed them. House Lu Sann, whatever the hypocrites of House Imarra might claim, was the only House so dedicated. Those who had joined the order found their happiness and joy in the protection of the Celestial Majesty. Such had been drilled into her since the first day she could remember.

So why didn't she feel particularly happy or joyous?

"Makoto Kino, you have rendered great service to the Confederation in your time at this monastery. Sifu Clark has taken a number of opportunities to inform me of the dedication with which you have pursued your studies and piloted the training 'Mech assigned to you." The voice continued.

Makoto strained to hear any trace of the displeasure she was sure Master Samsonov felt. It must tear the old man up to admit the service of a woman—a woman who was blatantly a child of non-Capellan mercenaries instead of a Citizen—had been commendable. Candace Liao's example may have succeeded in chasing some of the conservative elements out of the Armed Forces themselves, but the Warrior Houses were an entirely different story.

Contrary to her expectations, she heard no such thing. If anything, Master Samsonov sounded genuinely complimentary.

Clark didn't quite jostle her with an elbow, but when he looked over at her from his spot at her side she got the message well enough. A response was expected.

"I live to serve." Makoto said, letting none of her thoughts enter her words. She touched her forehead to the cold stone in front of her, thankful that the fabric of her own robes protected her chest from coming into contact with the freezing-cold material.

When she brought her head back up, Clark had taken up position beside the nearest stone pillar. Master Samsonov was probably concealed behind the next pillar closer to the center of the room. More of the aggravating symbolism Clark had insisted she learn instead of spend the same time in much more productive ways.

"As do we all, Initiate. But service does not guarantee citizenship. Someone of your background should know this better than others." Samsonov's voice rumbled through the central hall of the temple.

Makoto clenched her teeth together and responded to the veiled jab with a growl. She should have expected some reference to her origins outside the Confederacy, especially from an old-school adherent like Samsonov. But even expecting it wouldn't have changed how aggravating it was to hear.

"Master?" Clark said, the word falling into the darkness of the stone around them.

The only person in the entire temple who'd never disparaged her foreign status was Clark.

Samsonov appeared, his elaborate _jiasha_ immediately making him obvious among the boring greys and off-whites of the stone supports and pillars spaced around them.

Makoto jerked slightly, realizing he had emerged from an alcove that was furthest-away from her and Clark's own position at the very entrance of the temple's heart. The only more authoritative position he could have taken up would have been at the center of the room itself, but that was reserved for those cases where the Chancellor himself passed-on orders directly.

As it was, Master Samsonov's position meant he spoke with the same authority. He was merely acting as a messenger for orders he had received from the Celestial Throne on Sian itself!

The buzzing nervousness she'd felt but refused to recognize coalesced into an ice-cold ball of terror and anticipation in her chest. After a brief, pleading look at Clark hoping for some kind of explanation to materialize, she dropped her forehead to the floor once again. Any member or prospective member of a Warrior House was expected to kowtow before the Chancellor or his messengers.

"Makoto Kino, born of those with no lineage in the Confederation, and Initiate of Warrior House Lu Sann, the Chancellor speaks through me." Samsonov said, slowly unfolding a sheet of paper.

Makoto kept her head where it was, and tried not to puke.

"By order and command of I, the Celestial Wisdom, the Light of the Universe, Lord of Ten Thousand Years, and Director of the Galaxy's Turn, Chancellor of the Capellan Confederation and Master of the Warrior Houses Maximillian Liao, you are deployed to a new station more befitting the skills and talents you may offer the Confederation. You will proceed with all haste to the coordinates listed, where you will take duty in the personal entourage and security detail of the Duchess of Saint Ives, the Exalted 'Mechwarrior of the Confederation and Heroine of Spica, and Chosen Successor to the Bearer of the Mantle of Heaven, Candace Laio. You shall accompany and assist her in any manner she deems fit as she attends the marriage of the deceitful and traitorous Davion Enemy on Terra. This will be done."

Samsonov had walked as he spoke, and now stood just in front of her head as he finished reading the message. Recognizing the cue, Makoto raised her head from the floor just enough to look up at Samsonov and take the paper with one hand.

"This will be done." She affirmed, the words coming out in a gravelly croak that disappeared into the air almost as quickly as she spoke. Despite everything, underneath the surge of pride at her accomplishment it felt _wrong_.

Personal detail for one of the Chancellor's family members! It was almost unheard of for initiates to even be considered for such a position. Even more so because Warrior House Imarra had tended to have a lock on the duty thanks to their close position to the capitol. For her own name to have come up, Master Samsonov must have recommended her himself!

She'd always been under the impression the old man merely tolerated her presence. Perhaps that was why it felt so incorrect to be receiving such an assignment. She could not imagine _why_ he would have recommended her for anything. Particularly not something which would require she be promoted and finally completely and formally accepted into House Lu Sann.

"You shall need to retrieve whatever items you require from your quarters and prepare them for the next occupant, Initiate Kino. You shall temporarily be granted leave from your station to obey the Supreme One's commands." Samsonov said.

What.

What?

"What!" Makoto snapped, unable to hold the word back.

Clark was visibly shocked as well, but his own reaction was limited to a slightly more dignified head-snap. Samsonov merely stared at her as if she had just piloted a 'Mech into the side of a hill.

" _Need I repeat myself_ , Initiate Kino? Retrieve whatever items you require from your quarters and prepare them for the next initiate." Samsonov repeated.

Except he couldn't have said that. Because those were the last words the Master of a temple uttered to a departing member of the House. They were never said to an Initiate! Because Initiates were never released from the temple until they were accepted into the House!

Makoto rose, having to jerk her body into motion past a wall of shock and incomprehension and _rage_. She wasn't being accepted into the House. She was only leaving the temple. But no one ever left the temple without being accepted into the House! Certainly no one ever took service in such close proximity to the Chancellor without it!

She was angry enough to crush him! Destroy the stone pillars that stood around her as supports and let the temple bury them all like the Jewish hero Initiate Grigor liked to compare himself to! She wanted to fulfill the dream she'd had and throw the force of an entire storm into the smug, uncaring face of Elder Samsonov! Nothing but a swirling pit of _anger_ existed in her for a split-second, and she took a deep breath in preparation for assaulting the man.

Instead of doing any of that, she grabbed the orders he held and ripped them from his hand. She meant to snort some kind of derisive comment, but it came out as a half-choked sob instead, and she was angry at that as well.

"Fine." She said on her second attempt at speaking.

Makoto refused to perform the traditional retreat from the temple's center. Instead of taking careful steps back and bowing after each one, she marched her way backwards out of the room. She didn't break eye contact with Samsonov until she was at the exit. Even then, she only took her eyes off of him so she could bore them into Sifu Clark.

 _Traitor._

By the time she reached her room, she already had a mental list of everything she needed to take with her, a list of who she could trust the plants to, and a much longer list of names for Elder Samsonov. The written orders would ensure her lodging and transport, so she need not worry about that. She really had no need to worry about anything but leaving the entire life she'd known behind with nothing to show for it.

Now she was just more confused.

"You've made her mad, Master." Clark whispered.

"It wouldn't be the first time. Not even close. I seem to have developed a talent for setting her off over the years. We should just be thankful she doesn't remember all the other times. Though in this case _was_ it me? Or was it the Chancellor?" Samsonov said. He cast one tired eye at Clark, "Or have you? I was not the one who revealed her to Sian, after all."

Clark winced in recognition of the rebuke, but opened his mouth to defend himself from it all the same. It was an unfair criticism. It's not like he had _known_ who she was when he'd forwarded her name to Sian upon the request for 'female warriors of great skill'. He'd thought Samsonov had been intentionally holding her back. He'd been right, but not for the reasons he'd thought.

His protest was stopped when Samsonov raised one hand and shook his head.

"I know. I should have told you sooner. You need not remind me that it wasn't your fault. I remember. I'm not _that_ old. Not yet." Samsonov said, tucking his hands into the sleeves of his _jiasha_ and shivering despite the relative warmth of the temple's center.

"She will be fine." Clark reassured. His defensiveness vanished into nothing as he noticed just how frail the old man looked. When Samsonov didn't stand straight and allowed himself to move with the slow, tired movements of his actual age he looked like he was on the verge of death. Ninety years on the same mountain had worn him down. Spending many of those years keeping the real purpose of the grounds hidden after Warrior House Lu Sann had appropriated the site as a training facility had surely done him no favors either.

Clark tried for a sense of levity.

"She _has_ been trained for hundreds of years."

The words actually drew a chuckle from Samsonov, though not for the reason Clark had hoped.

"Ha! What use is hundreds of years of training when she can't remember any but the most recent ones?" Samsonov shook his head, "Doubly so when she _still_ can't actually harness her powers."

"I'm sure she won't need them. It's a formal political event on _Terra_ she's attending as a decoration for the Chancellor's daughter, not mysterious disturbances in the Periphery or planet's suddenly going dark that she must investigate." Clark said.

"You underestimate how much evil a formal political event is capable of. Especially one on Terra surrounded by the snakes that lead the Successor States." Samsonov cracked, apparently taking his own turn at levity.

"And you're always assuming the worst of the Great Houses. Don't attribute to malice what is better explained by stupidity."

Samsonov nodded a small, tight nod. His typical response when they began to retread arguments they'd had before and had agreed to disagree with one another.

"This feels _different_. Something in the wind—the thunder?—Something tells me I will not see her again." Samsonov finally said, hobbling towards the exit.

Clark wasn't sure how to argue with that. How could he argue with the wind?

"Perhaps I'm just getting old. It's well-known you get sentimental when you get old. With her leaving, there will truly be nothing I recognize in these old stone halls. Changes. Always changes."ay.


	9. Chapter 9 - Burning like a Silver Flame

**Miyako City  
Sendai, Draconis Combine  
20 June, 3028**

The three other women were gathered in the center of the room around the tea-making table, none having spoken a word yet. It would break with tradition for discussion to start before drinks were poured. A formality, but like all formalities an essential one.

According to tradition, the most junior _Miko_ present was charged with performing the tea ceremony. Usually, the senior priestess would carry out the ceremony, to better emphasize that the Order was socially superior to their visitors. But since the visitors today were also members of the Order of Five Pillars itself, it was the rank of those present that mattered and had to be adjusted for. A situation which only presented itself among meetings of the Order's priestesses or when the Order met with representatives of The Dragon.

Bending at the waist, the _Miko_ in charge of tea-and incidentally the topic of the meeting-carefully fanned the coals on the underside of the table. She focused on the act to the exclusion of everything else, trying not to notice the unlucky number of people in the room and instead place her attention on how to balance how much air she blew onto the coals. They needed more than they currently had, but if she was too enthusiastic they would begin to burn instead of slowly smolder as she wanted.

Rei Hino focused her efforts and only moved the fan with careful, deliberate motions that allowed her the most control over its effects. She still had trouble balancing the heat versus the flames. It seemed as if every time she was charged with tea, the coals became restless at her mere presence and blew up at the slightest provocation. No matter how slowly she fanned them or how little air she let actually pass in, they always burst into fiery displays that had no place in what she was doing.

If she were forging a sword, perhaps the massive pyres of fire she created would be appropriate. Or if she were meeting with particularly despicable people she wanted to subtly show her displeasure towards. But for tea meant for her superiors, that much heat was unnecessary, wasteful, and insulting.

At the moment, being wasteful or insulting was the last thing she needed. With three senior priestesses of the Order of Five Pillars gathered together in the room, the last thing she needed was to make a mistake that would reflect poorly on herself and N'goto's training of her. Particularly considering the topic under discussion.

Rei nodded in satisfaction as the coals, for a change, obeyed her wishes and flared to a black-outlined red-hot glow that was _perfect_.

As if to spite the thought, a small sputter of orange tried to come to life in one corner. It burned for an instant, but was lacking in fuel and air and burned itself out almost as quickly as it had come. But the fact that it _had_ come was enough.

Her nod died at almost the same time as the flame. _Acceptable_ then, but not perfect. Not perfect by a long shot. She didn't know how she was supposed to do it!

Putting the mistake behind her as best she could, Rei transferred the pot of water onto the grate above the coals. She gave it one quick, light swirl to make sure it would steep evenly, then leaned back into the proper position-head bowed, back straight, and knees together underneath her.

Tyrson was ignoring her, which was comforting. If the Illuminatus didn't notice her, it meant she had done nothing incorrect that would draw her attention. Tyrson's nonverbal vote of confidence was reassuring, even if Rei wasn't entirely certain she deserved it.

Less comforting were the stares focused on her by the two other priestesses accompanying Tyrson. They did not even have the courtesy to try and hide the critical eye they had on her, and Rei felt a twinge of sympathetic embarrassment on their behalf. Amazing that one could rise so high without learning basic courtesy!

When the tea was ready, Rei kept her eyes on her task as she poured it for everyone at the table. She forced her mind to obey the same dictum. She admired many things about the Order. Its inner political workings was not among them. Especially when they had been used to shuffle off her mentor to what should have been an honored position in near disgrace. Being 'promoted' to a position in the orbit of Marcus Kurita, no matter how close it might be to the Coordinator, was a deliberate slap in the face.

What she couldn't figure out was why she was being sent to duties elsewhere rather than stepping-in for her old master as tradition dictated. That thought occupied center-stage in her mind as she set the teapot back upon the table.

" _Konichi-wa_ Tyrson- _sama_ , you honor this humble shrine with your visit. How was your trip?" Rei said after taking a courteously small sip from her cup.

She hid a flinch of anger in her lips behind the cup as Tyrson allowed one of her lessers to answer the question. It was going to be one of _those_ kinds of meetings, then.

"We experienced only minor inconveniences. There was a delay of some days in Sulafat because the helium-tanks on our jumpship required repair and refueling. The captain had grown careless in his maintenance concerns and damaged the jumpship through his negligence. We shall have to hope his second-in-command takes better care of the Dragon's infrastructure." One of the two lower-ranking priestesses said.

"Indeed." Rei responded simply, not willing to grace the verbal trap with any further response.

Her master had been reassigned in disgrace. It was no accident that Tyrson's retinue had decided to share the story of a disgraced leader as their opener. The message was obvious: Serve the Order better than your former master did. The question was what N'Goto had done to deserve such a harsh condemnation.

Rei kept her face impassive as she lowered her teacup and listened politely to the other priestess as she continued. N'Goto had done nothing but serve the Order for as long as Rei had known her. The elderly woman had taken the time to train her in the Order's ways after her first master had been struck by a bus. N'goto might as well have been a mother to her, and the same to at least three dozen others on Sendai! The shrine's attendants and maintainers were made-up of everything from street-urchins and the family-members of dishonored DCMS personnel to the relations of out-and-out _yakuza_.

Now the Order had thanked N'goto for the sacrifices she'd made in taking in such a wide variety of what otherwise would have been little use to the Combine by shuffling her away. Heaping shame on her as if she had done something wrong by teaching the Order's ways to those in need of them! As if she deserved to be punished for making the Order stronger!

Her own proposed reassignment to be the head _miko_ on another planet, in that context, was more insult than compliment. They thought her a protege of a disgraced priestess who needed to learn the Order's ways further before being promoted to further duties.

She, however, knew there were things of greater importance she should be doing. She could feel it.

"This is a very good brew." Tyrson interrupted, her voice lighter and airier than her juniors. There was the barest trace of an accent behind the Japanese, more guttural and less flowing than it was usually spoken.

Rei jerked upon the realizaton that Tyrson had spoken because her cup had gone empty. She bowed slightly as she grabbed the teapot and refilled the Illuminatus' cup, thankful that the slight bow allowed her to hide the blush that colored her cheeks at the mistake. Usually tea at these kinds of meetings was little more than a decoration, and she'd already refilled Tyrson's cup once!

She should have been paying better attention.

"It is, isn't it? The best part is that we need not import it from off-planet, either. The locals grow enough to trade with us in return for their ivory." Rei answered, doing a much better job than the other two junior priestesses had of hiding her barbed point behind properly courteous words.

"Sometimes it is the smallest blessings of a place which make it a pleasure to serve there." Tyrson continued.

The words themselves were harmless enough, but now the implications of what Tyrson was saying was clearly worrying the two others with her. From the only half-concealed glances they exchanged with each other, they had expected to speak for their superior throughout the entirety of the meeting.

Rei caught the veiled message clearly, and had to wonder why Tyrson was so friendly to her argument. The elderly Illuminatus was well-known for her conservative bent, which in the Order of Five Pillars was an extraordinary accomplishment. But she was offering implicit support to Rei's point by being so complimentary and accepting. So much so it was throwing off the two inferiors at her side!

To be honest, it was throwing off Rei as well. But she was much better at concealing it than the other two.

The two junior priestesses got themselves under control better in the next few moments, however. With their next words, things returned to the pattern that had been established before. The two underlings spoke to Rei in place of the senior priestess, all while Tyrson did naught but sip at her tea.

Though Tyrson did wave Rei towards her compatriots almost-untouched cups when the conversation began to turn to the actual reason for the meeting.

"The Order has new duties it wishes to ask of you. The senior priestess for Kervil has become indisposed. The Order recognizes you as deserving of her position. Would you be willing to set your affairs here on Sendai in order and make this journey?"

Rei hid a huff of disappointment and offense behind a careful sip of tea. So rude! Worse than that, so shaming for them to bring up the actual business of the meeting so quickly. Tradition dictated at least another fifteen or twenty minutes of courteous small-talk before the actual topic of the meeting was broached. Even then, as host it should have been her who began such discussion by inquiring as to the purpose of their visit. They were skipping over all of that as if it didn't matter in the slightest.

She might have considered her own reaction as excessive, but Tyrson also broke her own facade to tilt her head at the two junior priestesses beside her. The newest members of the Order seemed to have a disconcertingly low degree of patience and a serious lack of respect for the traditions of the Order. Rei knew she shouldn't criticize the two priestesses in such a way, as they were about the same age as her. But they conformed to the stereotype so well she couldn't help but notice it.

She quietly took one hand off her teacup and rubbed it against the side of her robes. This was the part where things would get interesting. She had been exchanging polite but irate messages with other members of the Order for a number of weeks now. She had seen the insult against her master and herself and, mostly at the behest of N'Goto, had been arranging things to her benefit in contesting it for weeks now. Rei never wanted to be involved in the politics of the Order, but she could appreciate it when someone who knew the ins-and-outs as well as N'goto did talked her through how to take advantage of it.

"I have a great number of commitments here on Sendai which demand my attention at the moment, Masood- _san_." Rei said. Not a refusal, that would be rude. But a negative placeholder that would put the onus on them to either make it into an explicit order or rethink themselves.

She didn't have much hope in them actually reconsidering. But she could force them into shaming themselves by having to break with tradition and _order_ a priestess into a new temple. It was the most extreme protest she could give for her 'disgraced' former master, and N'Goto was worth whatever dishonor she might acquire in others' minds by her own actions.

"Whatever minor concerns the people of Sendai have can be dealt with by the new head _miko_." The second protege of Tyrson said, crossing her hands over each other in her lap. She hadn't so much as taken a sip from her cup yet, a calculated insult if Rei had ever seen one. But it was almost juvenile in its obviousness. A more accomplished and subtle message would have been to pantomime drinking but let her cup remain full in spite of the act presented.

"The concerns of the Dragon's subjects are never minor. I would be remiss if I did not attend to them as quickly as possible." Rei responded without missing a beat. She tried not to feel smugly satisfied at the purple hue that rose from the other woman's neck at the words, but failed entirely. Where had the Order found such a pair of bumbling ingrates like these, the Periphery?

Tyrson slowly raised one hand and cut-off whatever retort either of her two juniors might have had. She made a small circular motion with her index finger. Clearly trained to react to the gesture, both of the other two priestesses rose and shuffled their way to the shoji-panel door that led out of the tea-room. Masood gave a heated glare before exiting and closing the door, but Rei ignored it as easily as she had every other rudeness the pair had focused on her.

She had to grudgingly admit that the silent way they manipulated the door was commendable. She had expected them to slam it in the same manner as a child throwing a tantrum.

The silence that developed was interrupted only by the soft bump and whisper of Tyrson's teacup floating through the air and being set against the table. Tyrson took a slow, quiet breath and the beginnings of a smile crept onto the edge of her lips.

"Better. Much better." She said, half-closing her eyes.

She went silent again after those three words. Tyrson's entire world became centered around the teacup in front of her, and Rei began to feel like an intruder in her own temple. She dared not say anything to interrupt the Illuminatus' thoughts, and did her best to settle in herself.

Everything seemed to conspire to stop her from copying Tyrson's easy relaxation. A slow fire began to creep up her right leg in protest of maintaining the knees-tucked posture she'd held. There was a bothersome whistle of air from the ceiling where the vent to the rest of the temple and the outside was located. The biting smell of the burning coals seemed to curl into her nose instead of drifting out of the room as it should have.

Tyrson took one final, somewhat-barbaric gulp of tea from her cup and set it back onto the table with a loud _clink._ She visibly breathed, then pushed the teacup further into the middle of the table. Before Rei could stop her, she picked up the kettle herself and refreshed her cup.

Rei leaned back at the unorthodox assumption of control over the ceremony and replayed the preceding conversation in her mind. There had been four priestesses present until Tyrson had dismissed them, a symbol of disrespect and ill-will in most cases. But Tyrson had taken eight drinks of tea now, which was a subtle message of opportunity that was conveyed when explicitly stating so would be rude or impractical. But how was this supposed to be an opportunity?

"The Order saw fit to burden me with the two neophytes out there to present you with four priestesses in the room." Tyrson said. Her hands floated into the air in front of her to encompass the room around them.

Rei tilted her head, not sure how to take the admission. It was still confusing why Tyrson would admit such a thing. All the power in the symbol was in them not being acknowledged.

"Politics." Tyrson said, as if she could read Rei's mind. The older woman tucked her arms together into the sleeves of her robe and a small frown developed on her face as she stared at the tea set.

"There is discord in the House of the Dragon." Tyrson continued, now almost whispering.

Rei nodded, not trusting her voice to be steady enough to grace the comment with a verbal reply. The ongoing feud between Takashi Kurita and his son Theodore was widely-known in the Combine. The continuing court intrigues engaged in by Marcus Kurita were also destabilizing. But both were deliberately not spoken of. To do so could only promote disharmony and dissension.

"The Keeper is unsatisfied with that arrangement and wishes to make it known in as public a manner as she can." Tyrson stopped, raised an eyebrow at Rei. "She does not, however, wish to be seen as promoting discord. A delicate balance. You allow her to strike that balance."

Rei's mouth went dry. The Keeper of the House Honor of the entire Order of Five Pillars was interested in her?

"Kervil is not in need of a new priestess. A jumpship traveling through that system very soon is. The Keeper wishes to use you as a message to both the Coordinator and Hanse Davion. Only a very junior priestess will do."

Whatever iota of moisture that might have still existed in Rei's mouth disappeared, and she painfully swallowed. She was being used as an insult. Constance Kurita was playing a dangerous game, so half-blatantly insulting the Coordinator. Takashi Kurita would take note of the slight, no matter how it might be able to be formally explained as aimed at Hanse Davion instead of him. Inviting the Coordinator's ire was not typically something a _miko_ would be demanded to do.

At least it explained why her protests had been taken so seriously.

Rei considered her tea for a long moment. When she had reached a decision, she inclined her head towards Tyrson.

The remainder of the meeting passed in a pleasing silence. Rei almost regretted it when she had to escort Tyrson to the exit and reengage with the other two priestesses. She kept the disdain she felt for the two undisciplined priestesses from coloring her actions, but only just.

She didn't know why, but now this felt like the right thing to do.

The fasteners that secured the grate over the air return slowly wormed their way out of their tracks. Silently, the entire grate shifted until the only thing supporting it were the pair of black-gloved hands on the inside. Worming its way forward, the figure those hands belonged to slowly exited from the air duct it had hidden inside.

One leg shakily stretching out to rest against the closest of the room's five pillars, the figure completely removed itself from the air duct. Its entire body seemed to shake and contort in extreme effort as it held itself up just below the grate. It kept the grate it had removed balanced in one hand as it rotated in place, and then reattached the fasteners.

Only when that was done did the obvious fatigue it was under affect it and the black-clad figure dropped from its position. Despite everything, it slowed itself as it fell, and impacted the floor with only a soft _whuff_ of displaced air. Even this would have been too much sound in any other instance, but this was an irregular moment.

Lifting up the stylized cat-mask that he wore over his face, the figure quietly sucked down air that wasn't loaded with the byproducts of the coal that still smoldered in the center of the room.

Had he known it was going to be a formal, ceremonial meeting rather than the work-session he had suspected, he would have found another place to observe. But his passage underneath always distorted the sound to an almost-indecipherable degree, and the Guardian's redesign of the ceremonial room after N'goto had left had eliminated the shadows behind the fifth pillar he'd grown too dependent on.

He'd gotten lazy and stupid. Bored with his seemingly endless observations, he'd become secure in the knowledge that nothing would disturb them. The head of their _Miharu No Seishin_ had suffered the same failing years before, and carelessly walked in front of an oncoming bus. That carelessness had landed the Guardian in the charge of the Order of Five Pillars temple instead of in the more benign safekeeping of the Nekakami. He and his four companion spirit-cats had much to make up to the Guardian for.

He swallowed down an urge to puke, and rolled onto his side. His heart was beginning to work more normally as he let the concentrated near-hibernation he'd forced onto it fade. He could tell because it was pounding in his ears every time it beat and pumping white-hot pain into his extremities. On the bright side, the head-splitting migraine that had been developing was beginning to recede.

In the future, he would have to be more careful. Even focusing his _ki_ had only barely been enough to keep him alive. Another stupid mistake like that, and he would never have to worry about his charg's safety again.

He mentally groaned as he floated onto his feet and padded across the room to the exit furthest from where Tyrson and the Guardian had left. She was about to get put into a position where it would be much more _interesting_ to even try and observe and protect her. He never would have thought himself a coward, but suddenly the boredom and inaction forced on him by the last years he'd spent skulking about the Order's temple didn't seem so bad.


	10. Chapter 10 - Summit of Beauty and Love

**Hilton Head Island, Terra  
21 June, 3028**

"Is there any more manner I can be of service?"

The words were spoken with a harsh, biting accent that resembled that of a backwater Lyran speaking English for the first time. It was even further pronounced here, though, but was coupled with a lilting, strung-together rhythm that made the words even more difficult to puzzle out. But Adept Chapapaderong had improved dramatically. Back when he'd been fresh off the refugee-ship from the Periphery colony he'd called home up until the year before, his entire knowledge of English had consisted of 'Yes' and 'No'.

"It would be 'any _further_ manner I _may_ be of service', Inash. At least when you're speaking professionally or formally." He said, holding the lift's door open with one hand so it wouldn't close before he could offer the friendly correction.

Chapapaderong grimaced, and offered a slight bow of thanks for the correction. Once upon a time, he would have prostrated himself entirely and begged for forgiveness in the weirdly mashed-together dialect of French and German his planet had spoken. It had taken months for him to be broken of that habit.

Julian couldn't help but feel guilty whenever even the most tangential link to that previous habit arose. Inash still saw the Order in general, and Julian in particular, as his family's savior. All ComStar had been able to do was rescue the half-demented survivors of the old colony after most of the stronger Daimons had moved on. The Order was utterly undeserving of his praise. The Explorer Corps had only stopped-off in Un-pour-tous as a recharge-point while they tried to find where Wolf's Dragoons had come from.

"I understand, Primus." Inash said.

Julian Tiepolo let his hand come off the lift's doors and smiled a farewell at Inash. Before the doors had even fully closed, Inash had rotated in place and unshouldered the centuries-old Mauser 960 rifle he'd kept at port-arms out of respect for Julian. The ancient weapons were a status-symbol for the Hilton Head facility's guards. But they also were a purely practical choice of armament. In order to access the facility, an assault force would have to come through the extended hallway Inash and his subordinates were stationed at. That assault would be extremely costly and take a very long time. Long enough-it was hoped-that further reinforcements could be summoned from the ComGuard barracks below.

As the lift hummed into life, Julian could hear Inash barking orders out for the other pair of permanent guardsmen-who unlike him weren't cleared to know who entered or left the facility-to return to their stations. He could feel the stomping and pounding of their power-armor frames in his stomach as much as he could hear it in his ears until the lift had dropped him an entire floor.

Julian hated the perpetual secrecy so much of the Order's work was kept in. But it was a necessity he had long before been convinced of. Even within ComStar, he had encountered enough corruption of both the mundane and supernatural variety as to know just how valuable secrecy was. It was bad enough that the Houses, if they knew of the stores of 'LosTech' the Order kept hidden from them, would fall all over each other in fighting to claim it. He did not want to think of what members of the Order who'd been suborned by the Dark might do if they knew what the ComGuards training facility on Hilton Head Island truly concealed.

He leaned against the rear of the lift as it slowly descended through the necessary twenty-seven levels. For the first time in what felt like months, he let himself relax and just _breathe_. The air in the lift was recycled and stale, but just having the opportunity to be alone and mostly unobserved felt like a nice break.

Another massive war had seemed to be on the horizon with Melissa Steiner's marriage to Hanse Davion and the union of her Commonwealth with the Federated Suns. But the organization-and subtle publicization to Davion and Steiner informants!-of the Kapteyn Accords had nipped that worry in the bud. The nascent 'Federated Commonwealth' might be able to rattle its sabers provocatively, but it faced too many different avenues of threat to focus its ire on the Draconis Combine.

Hanse Davion might be 'The Fox', but he was too much a Davion to abandon his House's centuries-long feud with House Kurita. Especially as neither the Capellan Confederation nor the Free Worlds League had done anything that would raise his anger against them.

Finally, _finally_ , there was the real possibility of a break in the perpetual Succession Wars and a chance for him to weed out the rot within ComStar. The threat of mutual destruction the two opposing alliances presented wasn't perfect by any means, but it was a decided improvement over the previous situation. Particularly if they both suffered, as they would, from internal dissension.

The Free Skye Movement in the Lyran Commonwealth could be counted on to oppose both Katrina Steiner and any further integration of her realm with Hanse Davion's. The still-restless provinces of Rasalhague in the Combine served as a useful distraction for Takashi Kurita. The Free Worlds League was the Free Worlds League-internal dissension there was a given, and Maximilian Liao's paranoid streak already ensured the Capellan Confederation focused much of its resources internally.

War between the powers was impossible if those powers had to constantly vie with internal opposition and rebellion. It might still be destructive and deadly, the Combine and the Confederation in particular were not well-known for their restraint in handling such matters, but in the aggregate less would die and less vital infrastructure and technology would be destroyed this way than would if the Houses themselves went to war again on the scale they had.

At least, that was what he insistently reminded himself every night before he went to sleep. On those nights he _could_ actually get to sleep. They seemed to be getting more and more infrequent.

Which was what had driven him to come here again.

The lift came to a smooth halt. Before the doors could begin to open, Julian slapped the red halt button three times in quick succession, and then pressed the proper sequence of floor numbers. The lift _dinged_ , but gave no other indication anything had happened.

To aid the computer in its job, Julian tilted his head back and focused his face on the pinhole-camera in the upper-right corner of the lift. He'd tried holding his breath before on the assumption that perhaps even those subtle movements would throw off the facial recognition software, but he'd quickly found out it made no difference.

"Primus Julian Tiepolo, alone, to see level twenty-eight." He said, enunciating every word. He hated having to repeat himself to the machine.

Nothing happened for almost a full minute. Just long enough for him to begin dreading that the mechanical voice would come back with a 'your message could not be understood' response. But just as he was beginning to grow certain that such a thing was coming, the lift shuddered to life once again.

He could feel it slowly creep its way sideways for a number of meters before the more familiar downward sensation began again. He'd always admired the staggered vertical passageways that made up the lift system in the Hilton Head Island Complex. It was overly complex and prone to mechanical breakdowns, yes, but it was also just so darned convenient when compared to the single-tube, single-building lifts that were used above ground in the more public areas of ComStar's administrative center.

The lift stopped, and opened its doors to reveal the unlisted 'level 28'. Unlike the hallways of the rest of the facility, these still shone with bright and shining stainless steel trim. No Mechwarriors had leaned against the wall and left the telltale scrapes and stains from the cooling vests, and no harsh chemicals had ever needed to be used on the floor to try and recapture its original sheen. Level 28 was a closed environment. Disturbed only irregularly and immediately cleaned afterwards by small robotics which could be depended on never to speak of what they saw in the course of their cleaning.

"Welcome, Primus." The tinny, slightly-feminine voice of the computer said as he stepped out.

He would give an arm and a leg to have a human secretary like he had above ground. Once again, the concerns of secrecy took priority over the concerns of human interaction. The last time there had been two conscious people on level twenty-eight had been when Rusenstein took him there after resigning.

It was more secure this way, but it gave him the same cold, impersonal feeling that the ICU of a hospital would.

"Hello Eunice." Tiepolo said, shaking his head at the silly name and the sheer _weirdness_ of speaking to a computer as if it were a person.

'Eunice' wasn't just a computer, though. Painstakingly transplanted piece-by-piece from the devastated Unity City by Jerome Blake himself-or so the story went-the Unity Intelligence System was the most powerful computing machine in the Inner Sphere. Supposedly, it had been the Cameron's solution to managing an interstellar Empire where the composite pieces had a tendency to hate each others guts. It could singlehandedly read, analyze, and collate data from HPG traffic throughout the Sphere into a basic intelligence outline and force assessment in the time it took for ROM to prepare an incomplete report on a single system.

A fact that had allowed him to realize just how inaccurate the reports he was getting from ROM were.

"Would you like a status update, Primus?" 'Eunice' asked.

"No, that won't be necessary." Tiepolo said as he began to pace the hall, letting one hand float along the paper-smooth walls.

It had been only a dozen hours since he'd last been briefed by 'Eunice'. A dozen worry-filled, stomach-twisting hours that didn't say anything good about how the coming weeks would feel. When it came down to it, he had a basic idea of the status of things even without the periodic reports. He had ever since 'Eunice' had relayed to him the message from Guardian Pluto.

He hoped the Guardian was alright. He dared not make any explicit moves in support of her until he could narrow down who the corrupted ones in ComStar were. Delivering what she needed to the University of Geneva had been risky enough. Anything more would only put her in further danger.

As guilty and ashamed as it made him feel, he could justify putting average people into danger by manipulating the Houses against each other and themselves. But if there was going to be a future of humanity, he couldn't so much as risk one of the Guardians. They were too important. A person simply didn't compare.

He hated himself for that judgement, but he knew it was correct in the grand scheme of things.

"Open the central processing room please, Eunice." Tiepolo asked as he reached what looked like the end of the hallway.

There was a pause. A loud _ka-chuk_ sounded as four rectangular corners of the wall removed themselves from the end and retracted into the sides of the hallway. In a larger-scale imitation of them, the rest of what looked like a wall followed suit, sliding into the nearest corner of the wall with an almost relaxing hiss of mechanical noise.

The room beyond was almost disappointing after such theatrical exposure. While it opened up somewhat and provided a wider floor-space than the hallway offered, the walls and floor were virtually identical to those present in the hallway. The only immediately obvious difference was the morass of wires, tubing and conduits that were strung across the ceiling so thick as to make any guess as to what the _actual_ ceiling looked like a purely academic exercise.

He entered. Years of experience meant that when the hidden door slammed itself closed directly behind him, he only jumped a little bit. One of these days, if he lived long enough to reach old age, that was going to give him a heart attack.

Dull, white lights interspersed in the wiring of the ceiling slowly fluttered to life. All of them focused on a small circular spot in the middle of the room where the floor's regular, flat pattern was interrupted. Etched into the floor in its place was a circular cut that would almost have been invisible on cursory inspection.

It became more noticeable when it twisted in place, and slowly extended upwards. In small sections, the cylinder bore upwards and then locked in place with every step, slowly building its way towards the ceiling. As it emerged, coolant-vapor radiated off the outside of the pod that was contained within. A handful of the wires and conduits that had hung loose from the ceiling were pulled tight, and the entire setup locked into place with a bone-rattling _thunk_ that sounded like something one would hear from a 'Mech, not a lesser machine.

Julian took a long breath of the coolant-tinged air, briefly transported back to his earliest days in the Order trying to keep cobbled-together HPG facilities working smoothly. He shook himself out of the memory as quickly as it had come. Stifling a yawn, he forced himself to cross halfway around the cylinder.

The preservation fluid inside the pod tinted everything inside an unnatural silvery-blue color. The skin was odd enough, looking like a very unhealthy gray pallor from outside. But once again it was the hair that struck him as the most surreal. It was like something out of the most ridiculous and youth-oriented discotheque on Solaris VII.

Inside the pod, the Guardian's hair seemed to blaze in an almost painfully bright neon-blue, every strand illuminating itself against the off-white background of the pod's back. As he watched, the strands slowly drifted in the slow micro-current the cycling of fluid produced inside.

Just like every other time he saw such an unnatural setup, he was struck by the desire to start pulling wires and disconnecting tubes. Just as with those other times, he didn't act on the impulses. As he understood it, they had to be very careful when they unhooked Duchess Mercury from the HPG system.

"I'm sorry." He said once again to the inanimate body. He imagined many Primuses before him had said the same things. At least he might soon be in a position to do something more than just say words.


	11. Chapter 11 - And Venus was her Name

**Jojoken  
Andurien, Free Worlds League  
22 June, 3028**

The girl was surprisingly short, standing mostly-even with the trash bins that were scattered about the alleyway even with the aid of heels that added almost ten centimeters to her height. Unlike the dull plastic lids that covered the garbage cans, she was topped by a thick sheaf of golden-wheat hair that ran almost down to her knees. The hair swayed in time with every meandering, drunken step she took, peeking out from one side of the cherry-red cocktail-dress she wore and then the other as she overcorrected to try and keep her balance.

"Rolling down the street, smoking indo, sipping on gin and juice!" She sang.

The words were obviously and horribly off-key, with heavy slurring throughout that made them almost indecipherable. But sometimes being off-key and blatantly drunk was part of the _fun_.

"Like, what in the world is 'indo', anyways? They don't have it in the Magistrate? And if they, like, _don't_ have it in the Magistrasse-Magocracy-Magistratacy, it doesn't get you _wasted_!" Mina 'Centrella' half-slurred, half-yelled into the darkness of the alley.

Someone from inside one of the nearby apartments yelled at her to shutup. She began to scream back an irate reply about the man's mother, but stopped halfway through so she could bend-over beside a waste-bin and make puking noises that were about as loud as what she had been about to yell.

"Eughh, no more for Me-nah. Uh-uh. Nope. Nuh-uh. No more. Me-nah is _done_. I am never drinking again. Not even water." She mumbled to the ground below her, resting one hand against the ferrocrete wall of the alleyway she was in. Her other hand joined the first a moment later as she stared at the patterns in the ferrocrete of the wall.

The crisscrossing lines tickled at something in the back of her mind. Something she couldn't quite track down but that seemed to scream to her in importance from them. They were cut into the surface in the regular and even way that canals might be somewhere that water was rare. As if they were the lines a river made in a desert. Or the chiseled passageways water would make on a moon.

She blinked a few times and shook her head, trying to run-down the feeling of familiarity that thought provided but instantly blocked from it. Gritting her teeth, she tried not to think about how frustrating the phenomenon was. Instead, she focused on her surroundings.

There was nobody else in the alley. At least not yet there wasn't. The thumping bass-and-synth rhythm from the club she'd just exited echoed slightly from behind her, but it was muffled to a mere background detail by soundproofing and the other natural sounds of the night. There was an occasional whine from vehicles on the main thoroughfare a few blocks over. Her own confused thoughts were loud in their own right, but she didn't seem to be speaking the same language as them at the moment!

Mina leaned forward slightly, and let her forehead rest against the cool wall. A handful of blonde locks were caught in-between, but they weren't enough to keep the cold from penetrating to her skin. She enjoyed the sensation for a few long breaths, clearing her head of the madcap confusion it had chased itself into. It would look just like she was recovering from the spins or something else equally hedonistic, so it even served two purposes at once!

For probably the first time, she missed the easy days of laziness in the Palace back on Canopus. There, before she'd known what she was she'd never had these flashes of half-remembrance. She hadn't been bothered by the tickling mutter in the back of her mind that told her when she was missing something. Or if she had, it had been much easier to ignore it.

She took a long breath, letting her head loll back-and-forth against the wall. No matter how much she tried, she had yet to succeed in remembering what it was that bothered her. Undoubtedly it was connected to her status as a 'Guardian', but knowing that did nothing but make it useless to try and investigate. The only place it seemed to exist in the proper context was the orders Kyalla had shown to her when she told Mina what little she knew.

Mina forced herself off the wall and put the unimportant distractions behind her. Certain to stumble and over-correct every few steps, she passed through the alleyway without any trouble but that from her own mind.

Supposedly, the evening of clubbing by the Magestrix's bastard daughter was in celebration of 'continued good relations between the Duchy of Andurien and the Magistracy' as well as the coming marriage between Hanse Davion and Melissa Steiner. But Mina was astute enough to know when public perception was being manipulated. Winning support through free drinks was a very Canopian way of going about things. On the bright side, it seemed to be working.

It had all seemed so much more important the previous day. It had seemed much more _fun_ the previous day. Mina couldn't explain it, but she was suddenly looking forward to being off the planet. What she wouldn't give for a nice, relaxing deployment against pirates or the like back in the Magistracy. She didn't much like this skulking about and masquerading silliness that had been shoved on her. But she owed the Centrellas for caring for her over the years. Going after some Andurien ne'er-do-wells for them was, in a real sense, small compensation.

She played-up the difficulty of opening the passenger door of her car when she finally reached it. She still couldn't be sure if someone was watching, but she had that _feeling_. The odd buzz in the lower part of her stomach that always started when she was on the verge of action of some kind had come along only a few minutes before inside the club, and had been the reason she'd left a party that looked like it would be going long into the morning. But such a public venue wasn't a great place for a confrontation.

Mina paused before entering the vehicle, disguising a quick scan up and down the road as resting on the roof of the vehicle. There were a handful of people on the streets. Most were obviously waiting for rides of their own and those few who weren't were walking—stumbling usually—in one direction with the single-mindedness of the extremely intoxicated.

Mentally shrugging, Mina slid into the passenger's seat. Someone in her condition was in no position to drive, and the tint on the windows of the car would let her observe the street without concern of being noticed. The only question in the back of her mind was whether or not whoever she was supposed to be waiting for wouldn't take the easy route and try to assassinate Kyalla Centralla's bastard daughter the quick and dirty way. She had survived explosions that should have killed her before, if she believed Kyalla she had survived them numerous times before, but she didn't know _how_. Not knowing how, she definitely didn't want to put it to the test.

Frowning, Mina slid the seat back slightly and used one hand to pull a coat she kept curled up on the rear seat over her chest. The heels she had been in all evening came off in the next moment, and she couldn't help but groan in relief at the way the pressure finally let up. She hated heels.

Now, all she had to do was wait and watch.

"Why isn't it going off? Shouldn't it be going off by now? What's she doing?"

Cooper sighed at the incessant whispered questions from his apprentice and handed the spotting scope in his hands over. The young man was commendable in many ways. He had a good head on his shoulders for prep-work, and a natural skill at blending in. He'd gotten close enough to identify Mina Centrella as the real-deal inside The Silver Slipper without alerting the handful of local security that had been assigned to her. But the boy suffered from a decided lack of patience during these portions of operations. If he was ever to be initiated, he would have to improve.

Though, to be fair, such impatience was also a failing Cooper had as well. He'd just had many more years to learn how to fake it.

"She just got inside. It won't go off unless she actually turns the key." Cooper explained unnecessarily, rubbing at his face and idly scratching at hid beard. He hated rushed operations like this. If they'd had just another day or two they could have rigged up a real, remote-detonated bomb rather than relying on connections to the ignition forcing a containment failure. But for a bomb to get through security-checks, he'd have needed a much more sophisticated jamming device than existed anywhere in the Free Worlds League or a lot more connections with the mechanics who'd been in charge of the car. Overriding the fusion engine's limiters from across the street had been a much easier course of action.

His apprentice harrumphed and almost threw the spotting scope down. Cooper could sympathize with the feeling, but turned a critical eye on the boy anyways as he snatched back the tool.

They had two options. Kill time and hope that she got moving before sunrise or go to the secondary plan. Waiting was more appealing in many ways. Much as it strained at his desire to make something happen, it posed the least risk of Murphy interfering. But they were on a time-limit. They only had an hour or two before sunup brought many more people to the street.

In the end, that made the choice for him. Botched robbery was much more blatant than a containment failure on a GM-40 engine, and would probably inspire all kinds of investigation into potential assassination, but he wouldn't have to worry about that once he left the League.

A whip? Why was she using a whip? That was a really odd day-dream to have. It said some really awkward things about her subconscious if it was steering her in that direction...

No. It wasn't like that. It wasn't a toy. It was a weapon. A weapon she needed to fight… _What_? It was _right there_. She could practically _feel_ it.

The car rocked slightly as the door opened and snapped her out of the thoughts. She turned, eyes momentarily dazzled by the slightly-brighter glare from the streetlight without the windows to reduce it. She could imagine a police officer doing such a thing if it were early morning, but it was still nighttime. Unsure what else to do, she threw the coat up-and-off in preparation for what she could only assume would be a lecture by a newly-minted officer who hadn't yet learned what could best be left alone.

The brilliant-white section of blade that stabbed its way into the coat only to be caught in the faux-fur of its neckline made her reconsider that assumption. An officer's first-move would not be to stab a loiterer. Had someone really just tried to _stab her_?

She almost grinned. Found 'em!

Instinctively, she took a firmer hold on the coat and gave it a fierce twist. The knife flew from its wielder's hand and into the ceiling. Her attacker, still moving forward from his thrust, grunted in pain as his wrist rolled into an awkward position on the other side of the coat. Now, Mina did grin.

As she did, her left leg kicked out. It arced across her waist and into the man's abdomen in a contortion she wouldn't have thought herself capable of normally. His grunt of pain turned into a muffled yell, stopped-short only by the lack of air he actually had to really yell. He was temporarily impaired, but to really take him out of the fight, she would have to _follow through_.

Mina grabbed the edge of the doorframe with her right hand and pulled. She forced the rest of her body up-and-around in the seat, sending her other leg back to join its sister in the process. Mina felt as much as heard the sharp _crunch_ underneath the heel of her foot as it connected with the man's chest. His gasping pain came to a sudden and satisfying halt.

The urge to _secure the area_ battled with the ocean wave of relief that crashed over her at the danger being over.

It was then that she caught sight of the second attacker.

Unlike his younger companion, he'd kept his distance. Instead of closing in on the car, he'd taken up a position at the edge of the alleyway nearby. Half concealing himself behind the elaborately-inscribed ferrocrete, he was drawing on her with a small, black shape that had to be a projectile weapon or a laser of some kind. The dark made it difficult to tell for sure. It was very…professional of him.

No time to think about it.

Mina stretched one arm to the ceiling and wrapped her fingers around the hilt of the knife. In one motion she jerked it free of the roof, flung her entire arm forwards, and snapped it to a stop at full extension only a few centimeters clear of the open door into the cab of the car. Her fingers all pointed at the second man's chest—as if driven by some unconscious force on their own—and the knife slid out of her palm in the same direction.

The second assassin spun almost entirely around when the knife connected with the right side of his torso. He collapsed to the ground with a very quiet _huff_ and the jangle of whatever clothing and material he had on underneath the dark overcoat that had concealed him. His weapon clattered against the sidewalk, sliding about a meter away from the body where he'd be hard-pressed to reach it.

She jerked out of the car anyways, half-stumbling over the first assassin's body as she did. The ferrocrete of the sidewalk instantly bit into her feet, the stockings she wore useless as insulation. But it was much easier to move without the heels on, and she certainly wasn't going to waste time putting them on just because of a little cold!

She stalked the short distance to the second assassin's body, diverting briefly only to scoop up the auto-pistol that had clattered out of his hands. Reaching him, she smashed the wrist on his uninjured side down with one leg, and used her other to carefully prod at the knife's hilt. She began to line the pistol up with her attacker's head, only to stop midway through the motion and leave it pointed at the waistline of his overcoat. He might not be the Periphery pirate she was used to using the threat on, but men tended to have very similar reactions to the gesture whatever their background.

"Knife to meet you." She tried not to grin. She failed. Despite the beard, she could tell the man paled slightly.

The groan her words inspired may have come from the physical pain. But it just as well may have come from mental pain. She tapped the ball of her foot against the hilt of the knife to draw another groan and be certain. Since it sounded just like the previous one, she could be reasonably certain the assassin was just in a great deal of pain rather than unappreciative of her wit.

"I assume you know how this works? I ask, you answer? Since we're short on time, let's start with the obvious one. Who hired you?"

She had to give him credit, he met her eyes. When she wasn't playing the dumb slut of the Centrella family—which had plenty of competition from the Magestrix herself—people always found it difficult to meet her eyes. She hadn't yet met a pirate who could do it. At least that she remembered.

He had the gall to smile back at her instead of saying anything.

Before she could escalate her threats, his entire body began to twitch and shake. She kept his arm pinned down, but the rest of his body flopped around on the ferrocrete like a fish out of water. He took a final gurgling breath a moment later and went limp.

Well that was just great. How was she supposed to get any answers from a dead man? She hated professionals. They were so much more frustrating to interrogate!

There were not enough curses in existence to make her feel better, so she distracted herself as best she could. Rearranging a crime scene required a good deal of concentration, and she couldn't be too obvious about it just in case someone was watching. But before she started shrieking the pistol needed to be wiped at the very least, and she needed to come up with a more plausible explanation, one that suited her cover.

Mina's actions hiccupped at that thought. She wasn't completely certain when she'd begun to think of 'Mina Centrella' as a cover rather than who she was. But she couldn't deny how true the feeling was. She wasn't Mina Centrella. Mina Centrella was, perhaps, who she wanted to be but couldn't be. Because…Because she couldn't remember who she really was.

She glanced at the two dead men. What quirk of fate had given her an unnatural lifespan but a memory that only lasted a handful of years? Beyond that, why was she so good at killing people and why did it never bother her?

Instead of letting her thoughts run down that dead-end for the thousandth time, Mina shrieked and rushed over to the car so she could use its communications system to contact the Jojoken Internal Security Forces.

"Hello? You have to help me! They came out of nowhere! And they had a gun and a knife and they were so much bigger than me and your good-for-nothing officers were nowhere around and these thugs were about to—well—but they started arguing over me and then—now, I guess—they're both dead!" Mina screamed into the receiver as soon as the other end had been picked up, certain to make every third or fourth word so garbled by drunken mumbles as to be practically impossible to pick up on.

She forced herself to start shaking as the emergency-worker on the other end tried to calm her down and get her to provide more useful details. She shuddered with muscle spasms as random as she could force on herself making her calves stutter in pain and her hands shake.

The shaking made it difficult to rip the cocktail dress across the front in a suitably provocative manner, but both the shakes and the rip would do wonders for her story when the constables arrived. She could only hope that the two mysterious assassins would be more well-known to the planetary authorities and they'd let something slip about them around her.

**********************************************

"Lady Centrella-" Lieutenant Cash began, only for the still half-drunk and far too handsy Canopian to make _those_ eyes at him.

"Just Mina will do. Only my half-sis is 'Lady Centrella'."

He sighed at the half-veiled flirtation. He really should have let one of the rookies handle this one. Whatever gene-altering magic the Centrella's had used to produce a daughter that was blue-eyed and blonde-haired, it had apparently also affected other parts of the girl. Until this morning, he could honestly say he'd never been groped.

" _Miss_ Centrella, then." He corrected, refusing to give any indication he'd noticed her attentions. "Are you certain that one of your attackers kicked the other?"

"Yes? Does that matter?" Mina nodded, and blushed much more than was really necessary.

"It could." He allowed, formally writing down 'high-gravity world' under his list of suspicions about attacker number one. It took a rather powerful man to break multiple ribs with one blow and shoot them back into the vital organs. He'd only ever seen similar things in high-speed hovercar collisions.

"How much longer am I gonna be here? I want to go home. Or maybe out to breakfast. Do you get off anytime soon? Or I guess I should ask do you want to? Tee-hee."

Had she really just gone 'tee-hee'? There was no way Canopians actually used that kind of stereotyped language, was there?

He looked up, sensing somehow she might not be serious. She was staring at him with her lower-lip pursed outward and a frown that, contrary to his thoughts and her words, looked very serious indeed. For an instant, he might have sworn she was frustrated. But then the regular distance of the inebriated fell over her eyes, and he was certain it had just been his imagination.

He really should have passed this one off to someone else.

"I have work to do, sorry. Now, if you wouldn't mind, would you mind repeating how the knife—"

Before he could finish his question there was a very loud crash from just outside the interrogation room. The door flew open on its hinges, propelled by a very large man in a very large suit. The man scanned Cash up-and-down from behind midnight-black glasses, then stepped aside. Cash wasn't sure if he was supposed to be grateful or insulted that he apparently didn't look like some kind of threat to the bodyguard.

The thought crossed his mind at the same time as he saw the woman behind the bodyguard and knew that any prospect of actually getting to the bottom of what had happened was going to disappear. The Magestrix of Canopus had arrived. Which meant his time with the Magestrix's bastard daughter was at an end.

Dammit. Dammit. Dammit! He knew there was more going on here than she was letting on—Probably some Canopian intrigue of some kind or another. But he needed more time to draw it out of her! Time he wouldn't be getting now because the Canopian would undoubtedly invoke their diplomatic privileges.

He had been willing to bend the rules before, no matter how much it angered the mayor or his chief. But trying to put a criminal hold on not just a member of the Canopian diplomatic corps but on a member of the Centrella household? That would get him not only on the shitlist of the chief and the mayor, but on the personal shitlist of Dame Humphreys herself.

Cash was proud to consider himself a loose autocannon, but he wasn't stupid. There would be no winning for anyone if he went up against the head of Andurien itself. It was politics, and it sucked, but he couldn't change it.

"What is the meaning of this?"

Kyalla Centrella's voice was deceptively calm. But he could hear the undercurrent of absolute, livid rage that was waiting underneath it. He'd pushed his luck as far as he could interviewing the girl again. Now it was time for détente and deescalation. Before his department got hit with a WMD of political ill-will and he got chosen as the fall-guy to absorb as much of the fallout as he could.

"Magestrix! This is truly an honor." Cash stood and began to offer the dark-skinned woman a salute before hesitating, smiling an apology at her, and settling on a half-bow.

His immediate, if awkward, compliance seemed to shake the dark-skinned noblewoman out of her barely-contained rage. She blinked, seemingly lost without a clear target to focus her ire on, and her head tilted towards her bastard daughter, as if for directions.

"Gabriel was keeping me company while I waited, momma. I offered him breakfast, but he said he has to work."

The Magestrix' temporary confusion seemed to disappear with her daughter's words, and Cash was relieved to see a more familiar look of parental consternation cross her face. The woman even gave him an eyelid-fluttering look of exasperation that he assumed was directed at her daughter. Though the way the woman's eyes drifted down his chest, he could tell they were related.

"Officer Cash, far be it from me to accuse Andurien's Internal Security Forces of harassing a diplomatic mission." The much higher-ranking woman said after very slowly and deliberately looking at the name-badge on his chest, "As such, would you be kind enough to get my daughter and I a cup of something hot while she and I have some _words_ in private before we iron this whole situation out?"

Cash could tell it was a command rather than a question. But it gave him a chance to step out of the room that was rapidly becoming way too stuffy and political for his taste. He didn't know just how much shit he'd stepped in by not immediately informing the Canopians of Mina's situation, but he was sure it was a quite large amount. He wasn't about to turn down the opportunity to bow out. Not when the camera would capture whatever the two women said to each other, anyways.

In his considered opinion, criminal conspiracies needed to be investigated regardless of where they originated or who they targeted. His gut told him that the attack on Mina Centrella had been a conspiracy of some kind, but trying to iron out what it was had proven nearly impossible. None of the facts fit together, they had no leads on who the men even were, and as far as he could tell there was no motive. He had investigated murder in the Free Worlds League long enough to know that combination meant some kind of political conspiracy not 'random attack'.

"Certainly, your grace." Cash said with another half-bow.

It took him a moment after he had left the room to realize that the Magestrix had pinched his butt on the way out.

"Canopians." Cash sighed.


End file.
